1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
|
---
template: single
point: 33.975253480901436,-118.42905519744255
location: Los Angeles,California,United States
image: 2008/indexbooks.jpg
desc: None
dek: Google wants to index all the world's books. I know that doesn't have too much to do with traveling, but in a way it does — most travelers I know do quite a bit of reading. Since searchable books means a better chance to find something you like, who would oppose such a plan? Publishers of course. Fucking luddites.
pub_date: 2007-01-31T17:13:12
slug: catologue-raisonne
title: Catologue Raisonne
---
<span class="drop">J</span>effrey Toobin, a legal columnist over at the New Yorker, has <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/070205fa_fact_toobin" title="Google's Moon Shot">written a piece</a> about Google's <a href="http://books.google.com/" title="Google Book Search">book scanning project</a> and the legal challenges it faces. In a nutshell, two lawsuits are threatening the Google Book Search project, one is from a consortium of big name publishers who, curiously, are also Google's partners in the project, and the other is from the Author's Guild, which I've <a href="http://luxagraf.net/2005/oct/08/new-luddites/" title="The New Luddites">written about before</a>. Both lawsuits allege that Google Book Search infringes on the publisher's copyrights, which may well be true, but that isn't the problem.
The problem, according to <a href="http://www.lessig.org/blog/" title="Lawrence Lessig's Blog">Lawrence Lessig</a>, Professor of Law at Stanford Law School —and I tend to agree with him— is that if this case get's settled out of court, in other words Google pays up, it sets a precedent for other projects like Google Books. If Google pays why shouldn't everyone else? The thing is, Google can afford to pay but not everyone is steering a 150 billion dollar ship.
What Google wants to do is quite staggering when you think about it. There are roughly 32 million books in the world and Google wants to scan them all. But it doesn't stop there, Google is also working hard on some projects involving borderline AI translation projects which could someday yield translations to and from any language.
Giant brain trust sort of projects to bring the world's knowledge together and make it accessible have thus far in history not faired all that well, e.g. the library at Alexandria, but Google seems intent on seeing this through. In all likelihood Google will settle these cases, the precedent will be set and the Google Book Search project will soldier on.
There was a saying among early and perhaps slightly optimistic proponents of the internet that “information wants to be free.” And by free, we here mean free as in freedom. The problem it seems is that the people who bring the information to the market don't see it that way. They feel that holding knowledge in chains is the only way to make it profitable.
While I applaud Google's efforts to scan books, it's important to keep in mind that Google may have some high-minded intentions, but Google is also in it for the money. Google Book Search isn't going to set knowledge free, it may make it more accessible, but it won't make it free as in freedom.
But with the rise of so-called social media, I can't help wondering if maybe there's a better way. Statistics say there are 32 million books in the world, but they also say there are about <a href="http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html" title="US census bureau">300 million people in the United States</a> alone. Throw in Europe and the UK and you have a sizable multitude of potential book scanners. What if every person who owned a scanner went out and selected one book and scanned it? A lot of work sure, but not unthinkable (just don't get stuck with <em>War and Peace</em>).
It might sound far fetched, but ten years ago Wikipedia would have sounded absurd as well. The landscape keeps changing, sometimes what sounds crazy is exactly what the world needs.
I don't know, what do you think?
|
