twodoebs

A few months ago, online search behemoth Google announced plans to scan EVERY book at four major libraries and make the FULL text of these books searchable and available to anyone with an internet connection. The project was dubbed Google Print and--for my money--is the best thing to come to the internet since . . . well, since Google.

My thought? Information wants to be free. You can add it to a list of my mantras (note to self: a list of mantras would be a good blog posting). We have, here, the possibility to set the framework for every person on the planet to have reasonable access to mankind's collective intelligence. I realize that the model of Sweet Kati and I sitting around surfing the web as we sip coffee, each of us on our own laptops that are connected to the web via wireless networks, is far from villagers in Africa logging on to check in on new methods of crop rotation. But it's a START at the type of global information sharing that was pioneered by Gutenberg with his printing press (ah YES, the printing press . . . EVERY comparison of new internet technologies ALWAYS seems to come back to the printing press, doesn't it?).

Google Print, of course, only works if the publishers of the books that will be included cooperate. Trouble is, where they initially agreed that the project would represent a significant step forward in information communication, they've recently changed their tune. Their beef?--what else: copyrights. More specifically the economic damage Google Print will cause to their model of business that has heretofore been protected by copyrights.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm an entertainment lawyer (well, I guess up until two days ago, I WAS an entertainment lawyer . . . now I'm just unemployed) and I understand the importance of the Copyright Act. But how MANY media industries need to get socked before they start to realize that the Copyright Act is an artifact of a bygone era? It's fundamental that the PURPOSE of the Copyright Act--as dictated by the U.S. Constitution (Article 1 Section 8)--is "To PROMOTE the PROGRESS of . . . [the] Arts." Expecting the copyright scheme to prevent old technologies from being superseded by new ones is just plain crazy. All these industries worry about the Napsterization of their business models? Guess what?--"napsterization" is just a synonym for PROGRESSIVE development. Information WANTS to be free!

Somebody convince me otherwise!

Publishers balk at Google book copy plan