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Whenever I need something from Google Books I inevitably reach the message that this is a limited preview and the part I need is not included. I therefore feel

Whenever I need something from Google Books I inevitably reach the message that this is a limited preview and the part I need is not included. I therefore feel the same way about Google Books that how I felt when I learned that What.cd went down: that I don't gain or lose anything anyway because I never had access to begin with, and that by not making it 100% publicly accessible you're asking for the data to one day disappear forever.

p0w3n3d 26d ago
Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi Big companies will read up the books and make their AI recite them from memory, but Archive.org was sued for renting one book on an exclusive basis (unless one would return, another wouldn't be able to rent)
- misnome 26d ago
  > Archive.org was sued for renting one book on an exclusive basis (unless one would return, another wouldn't be able to rent) No, this is what they were doing before, but they explicitly started lending out "unlimited" copies, which is why they got sued.
  - ndiddy 26d ago
    That's why they got sued, but the suit is mainly over whether controlled digital lending is legal at all rather than their "emergency library". Archive.org lost the case on summary judgment, meaning that they could not come up with a single fair use argument for CDL that the judge found compelling enough to let the case go to trial. The full judgment is here https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.537900/gov.uscourts.nysd.537900.188.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.53... but here's a couple excerpts: > The crux of IA's first factor argument is that an organization has the right under fair use to make whatever copies of its print books are necessary to facilitate digital lending of that book, so long as only one patron at a time can borrow the book for each copy that has been bought and paid for. See Oral Arg. Tr. 31:10-15. But there is no such right, which risks eviscerating the rights of authors and publishers to profit from the creation and dissemination of derivatives of their protected works. See 17 U.S.C. §§ 106(1), (2). IA's wholesale copying and unauthorized lending of digital copies of the Publishers' print books does not transform the use of the books, and IA profits from exploiting the copyrighted material without paying the customary price. The first fair use factor strongly favors the Publishers. > In this case, there is a "thriving ebook licensing market for libraries" in which the Publishers earn a fee whenever a library obtains one of their licensed ebooks from an aggregator like OverDrive. Pls.' 56.1 ¶¶ 577-578. This market generates at least tens of millions of dollars a year for the Publishers. Id. ¶¶ 170, 172. And IA supplants the Publishers' place in this market. IA offers users complete ebook editions of the Works in Suit without IA's having paid the Publishers a fee to license those ebooks, and it gives libraries an alternative to buying ebook licenses from the Publishers. Indeed, IA pitches the Open Libraries project to libraries in part as a way to help libraries avoid paying for licenses. See Pls.' 56.1 ¶ 383 (presentation IA gave to libraries asserting that pairing with IA means that "You Don't Have to Buy It Again!"); id. ¶ 382 (different presentation promising that the Open Libraries project "ensures that a library will not have to buy the same content over and over, simply because of a change in format"). IA thus "brings to the marketplace a competing substitute" for library ebook editions of the Works in Suit, "usurp[ing] a market that properly belongs to the copyright-holder."
    - SideQuark 26d ago
      > suit is mainly over whether controlled digital lending is legal at all No, it was not, even supported by the quotes you pulled. Libraries right now, with publisher blessing, offer all manner of controlled digital lending. The suit was because IA did it buy undercutting the publishers copy rights to that legal market. Had IA simply done what every other library has done to provide controlled digital lending, there would be no suit.
      - ndiddy 26d ago
        "Controlled digital lending" is not a generic term for "lending digital items". It specifically refers to the practice of a library digitizing physical materials in its collection, then lending them digitally based on a 1:1 owned-to-loaned ratio. The idea is that the library should be able to treat digitized versions of a book the same way it treats the physical book, and the total number of physical and digital copies of the book that are lent out at once should never be more than the number of physical copies that the library has. In contrast to this, the e-book lending practiced by most libraries with publisher blessing involves the library purchasing special library-specific e-book licenses from the publisher. These licenses contain various contractual restrictions, such as the library having to re-purchase the e-book after a certain amount of time or after a certain number of borrows.
        SideQuark 25d ago
        Agreed. But there are reasons it is perfect legal for a library to digitize physical copies they own, and then can lend, also under the legal name of "Controlled digital lending". Clearly public domain works are fine, and US law also has exemptions for preservation where a new copy cannot be obtained at a "fair price", and perhaps some other things. So making it seem as if all "controlled digital lending" is not allowed under current law, even under the description you give, is not that simple.
  - allturtles 26d ago
    There is so much misinformation/confusion about this... they go sued after lending "unlimited" copies, but they were sued (and lost) for lending exclusive copies (controlled digital lending): > “At bottom, [the Internet Archive’s] fair use defense rests on the notion that lawfully acquiring a copyrighted print book entitles the recipient to make an unauthorized copy and distribute it in place of the print book, so long as it does not simultaneously lend the print book,” Judge John G. Koeltl of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan wrote. “But no case or legal principle supports that notion. Every authority points the other direction.” [0] [0]: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-innovation/teaching-learning/2023/03/26/legal-blow-internet-archive-controlled-digital https://www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-innovation/teaching...
ndiddy 26d ago
At one point Google Books was supposed to act as a clearinghouse for scans of out-of-print books. You could have purchased a scan of any book on the site for a reasonable price, and libraries could subscribe to a service where the full text of all books was available. This settlement then got shot down because some research libraries and authors argued that this was anti-competitive, and instead wanted Congress to pass a law to free up the rights to orphaned books so anyone could start a competing service. No progress on this was subsequently made because nobody in Congress cares enough about the rights to out-of-print books to get legislation passed. The whole reason why they're out of print when ebooks and print-on-demand exist is that they won't get enough sales to make it worth the time and money to figure out who the royalties should go to. It's not a flashy issue that would make a ton of people vote for you to get re-elected, and it won't create a ton of new jobs. The result is that now nobody outside of Google gets to see the full Google Books scans.
- allturtles 26d ago
  Yes, this was a great tragedy. I was very sad to see academics at the time arguing against Google providing what would have been one of the greatest storehouses of readily available knowledge in the world, in favor of an imaginary alternative that didn't exist and never would.
  - cube00 26d ago
    > Google providing what would have been one of the greatest storehouses of readily available knowledge in the world I'd be worried about how much they'd be charging for access once they had the monopoly on so many rare books.
    - anon84873628 26d ago
      Then at least there would be outrage to drive the passing of the needed legislation which otherwise hasn't come to pass anyway.
      - 26d ago
palmotea 26d ago
> Whenever I need something from Google Books I inevitably reach the message that this is a limited preview and the part I need is not included. > I therefore feel the same way about Google Books that how I felt when I learned that What.cd went down: that I don't gain or lose anything anyway because I never had access to begin with, and that by not making it 100% publicly accessible you're asking for the data to one day disappear forever. Can you still search the restricted parts? If so there's still value to it: it helps you identify the book so you do an inter-library loan to get at the full content. Sure, it's not frictionless, but I wouldn't be all or nothing about it.
- etdznots 25d ago
  Yes, please remember to say “Thank you, Google.”

p0w3n3d 26d ago

Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi Big companies will read up the books and make their AI recite them from memory, but Archive.org was sued for renting one book on an exclusive basis (unless one would return, another wouldn't be able to rent)

misnome 26d ago
> Archive.org was sued for renting one book on an exclusive basis (unless one would return, another wouldn't be able to rent) No, this is what they were doing before, but they explicitly started lending out "unlimited" copies, which is why they got sued.
- ndiddy 26d ago
  That's why they got sued, but the suit is mainly over whether controlled digital lending is legal at all rather than their "emergency library". Archive.org lost the case on summary judgment, meaning that they could not come up with a single fair use argument for CDL that the judge found compelling enough to let the case go to trial. The full judgment is here https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.537900/gov.uscourts.nysd.537900.188.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.53... but here's a couple excerpts: > The crux of IA's first factor argument is that an organization has the right under fair use to make whatever copies of its print books are necessary to facilitate digital lending of that book, so long as only one patron at a time can borrow the book for each copy that has been bought and paid for. See Oral Arg. Tr. 31:10-15. But there is no such right, which risks eviscerating the rights of authors and publishers to profit from the creation and dissemination of derivatives of their protected works. See 17 U.S.C. §§ 106(1), (2). IA's wholesale copying and unauthorized lending of digital copies of the Publishers' print books does not transform the use of the books, and IA profits from exploiting the copyrighted material without paying the customary price. The first fair use factor strongly favors the Publishers. > In this case, there is a "thriving ebook licensing market for libraries" in which the Publishers earn a fee whenever a library obtains one of their licensed ebooks from an aggregator like OverDrive. Pls.' 56.1 ¶¶ 577-578. This market generates at least tens of millions of dollars a year for the Publishers. Id. ¶¶ 170, 172. And IA supplants the Publishers' place in this market. IA offers users complete ebook editions of the Works in Suit without IA's having paid the Publishers a fee to license those ebooks, and it gives libraries an alternative to buying ebook licenses from the Publishers. Indeed, IA pitches the Open Libraries project to libraries in part as a way to help libraries avoid paying for licenses. See Pls.' 56.1 ¶ 383 (presentation IA gave to libraries asserting that pairing with IA means that "You Don't Have to Buy It Again!"); id. ¶ 382 (different presentation promising that the Open Libraries project "ensures that a library will not have to buy the same content over and over, simply because of a change in format"). IA thus "brings to the marketplace a competing substitute" for library ebook editions of the Works in Suit, "usurp[ing] a market that properly belongs to the copyright-holder."
  - SideQuark 26d ago
    > suit is mainly over whether controlled digital lending is legal at all No, it was not, even supported by the quotes you pulled. Libraries right now, with publisher blessing, offer all manner of controlled digital lending. The suit was because IA did it buy undercutting the publishers copy rights to that legal market. Had IA simply done what every other library has done to provide controlled digital lending, there would be no suit.
    - ndiddy 26d ago
      "Controlled digital lending" is not a generic term for "lending digital items". It specifically refers to the practice of a library digitizing physical materials in its collection, then lending them digitally based on a 1:1 owned-to-loaned ratio. The idea is that the library should be able to treat digitized versions of a book the same way it treats the physical book, and the total number of physical and digital copies of the book that are lent out at once should never be more than the number of physical copies that the library has. In contrast to this, the e-book lending practiced by most libraries with publisher blessing involves the library purchasing special library-specific e-book licenses from the publisher. These licenses contain various contractual restrictions, such as the library having to re-purchase the e-book after a certain amount of time or after a certain number of borrows.
      - SideQuark 25d ago
        Agreed. But there are reasons it is perfect legal for a library to digitize physical copies they own, and then can lend, also under the legal name of "Controlled digital lending". Clearly public domain works are fine, and US law also has exemptions for preservation where a new copy cannot be obtained at a "fair price", and perhaps some other things. So making it seem as if all "controlled digital lending" is not allowed under current law, even under the description you give, is not that simple.
- allturtles 26d ago
  There is so much misinformation/confusion about this... they go sued after lending "unlimited" copies, but they were sued (and lost) for lending exclusive copies (controlled digital lending): > “At bottom, [the Internet Archive’s] fair use defense rests on the notion that lawfully acquiring a copyrighted print book entitles the recipient to make an unauthorized copy and distribute it in place of the print book, so long as it does not simultaneously lend the print book,” Judge John G. Koeltl of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan wrote. “But no case or legal principle supports that notion. Every authority points the other direction.” [0] [0]: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-innovation/teaching-learning/2023/03/26/legal-blow-internet-archive-controlled-digital https://www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-innovation/teaching...

ndiddy 26d ago

At one point Google Books was supposed to act as a clearinghouse for scans of out-of-print books. You could have purchased a scan of any book on the site for a reasonable price, and libraries could subscribe to a service where the full text of all books was available. This settlement then got shot down because some research libraries and authors argued that this was anti-competitive, and instead wanted Congress to pass a law to free up the rights to orphaned books so anyone could start a competing service. No progress on this was subsequently made because nobody in Congress cares enough about the rights to out-of-print books to get legislation passed. The whole reason why they're out of print when ebooks and print-on-demand exist is that they won't get enough sales to make it worth the time and money to figure out who the royalties should go to. It's not a flashy issue that would make a ton of people vote for you to get re-elected, and it won't create a ton of new jobs. The result is that now nobody outside of Google gets to see the full Google Books scans.

allturtles 26d ago
Yes, this was a great tragedy. I was very sad to see academics at the time arguing against Google providing what would have been one of the greatest storehouses of readily available knowledge in the world, in favor of an imaginary alternative that didn't exist and never would.
- cube00 26d ago
  > Google providing what would have been one of the greatest storehouses of readily available knowledge in the world I'd be worried about how much they'd be charging for access once they had the monopoly on so many rare books.
  - anon84873628 26d ago
    Then at least there would be outrage to drive the passing of the needed legislation which otherwise hasn't come to pass anyway.
    - 26d ago

palmotea 26d ago

> Whenever I need something from Google Books I inevitably reach the message that this is a limited preview and the part I need is not included. > I therefore feel the same way about Google Books that how I felt when I learned that What.cd went down: that I don't gain or lose anything anyway because I never had access to begin with, and that by not making it 100% publicly accessible you're asking for the data to one day disappear forever. Can you still search the restricted parts? If so there's still value to it: it helps you identify the book so you do an inter-library loan to get at the full content. Sure, it's not frictionless, but I wouldn't be all or nothing about it.

etdznots 25d ago
Yes, please remember to say “Thank you, Google.”