Re: Neat summary of Google strategy

From: "Mary E Tyler"
>> Well.... That is less than a choice; more a gun to the 
>> head.
>> But my point was that robots.txt cannot distinguish 
>> content,
>> which seemed the matter being pursued earlier. However, 
>> the
>> suggestion you now add, that Google offers something in
>> return, ignores both that other search engines exist, and
>> that Google does not have the right to usurp the law of 
>> the
>> land.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by "distinguish content." You 
> write the
> robots.txt file. You do the distinguishing. The robots.txt 
> file
> communicates that information to the search engine. Other 
> search
> engines do pretty much exactly what Google does: crawl the 
> web, copy
> pages, rank them and spit out those rankings.

Robots.txt merely excludes spidering of the page or site by 
those spiders that will respect it, it cannot prevent the 
spidering of copyright content, nor distinguish different 
value contents on the same page. Links have their own 
possibilities for 'no follow', but this is now another 
contentious issue with Google's expected move to negate that 
use for page rank boostng.

>
> <snip about web sites>
>>> Holding of books on their databases, without an 
>>> agreement
>> with the appropriate licence holder is a breach of law 
>> and
>> colloquially theft, which is made worse with the threat 
>> of
>> publishing the material without reference to the owner or
>> holder.
>>
>
> But we were talking about web sites, not about ebooks or 
> databases.
> What I have been saying may or may not apply to ebooks or 
> databases
> because those weren't what I was talking about.

Ah! Then our disagreements may wither away - to some extent 
anyway. I cannot disagree that most webpages are made for 
distribution - 'please' ;-). In that case, for that area, I 
now understand the intention of the analogy about free 
sheets. My protests were over any similarity to books or 
paid for journals.

>
>>> you can also send a DMCA takedown and very likely get
>>> removed from the
>>> cache and index altogether.
>>
>> Which makes Google look like the breacher of rights it 
>> is.
>
> Which is also like shooting yourself in the foot.

For webpages agreed.

>
>>> I don't think this one could be litigated without
>>> involving a lot of
>>> laughter at your expense.
>>
>> It depends which content you mean. My concern is books.
>
> But that wasn't what I was talking about. So we might as 
> well have
> this same conversation all over again because I'm not sure 
> that I
> would advocate books being treated the same way as web 
> content. There
> are notable differences between the two forms.

I don't think we need to. While it was at cross purposes it 
has been a very civilised and informative discussion that 
seems to have brought a lot of useful information about both 
areas.

>
>> But
>> online content is also copyright, and any stated terms 
>> for
>> use are still legal and expected to be followed by any
>> responsible organisation or individual. Appearance on a
>> webpage or in an ebook does not make the content fair 
>> game
>> for all comers.
>
> Except neither the web nor search engines work that way.

I don't agree at all. Owners and holders set rights 
demanded; the most usual is 'include signature of copyright 
and link'. Some are quite hot about not using without 
permission.

And everyone
> who participates in this great thing we call the World 
> Wide Web pretty
> much agrees to "how it works" with a wink and a nod, if 
> not outright
> ignorance. You can, if you wish, prevent your site from 
> being
> spidered. You can, if you wish, forgo the traffic that 
> search engines
> generate. You can, if you wish, prohibit the copying of 
> your site onto
> proxy servers (yep, there are tags for that too). You can, 
> if you
> wish, prohibit people from copying your pages into memory 
> by locking
> down your whole site with a password so no one can see 
> anything!

There are websites that do all those things, because they 
are intended for a specific group and often have information 
that is secret, or which is otherwise confidential, or where 
it is a little but like an intranet over the web. But I do 
take your general point.

>
> Or, you can accept that the way the web works doesn't fit 
> into
> classical paradigms of copyright law and that times they 
> are a
> changin' no matter what the most strict interpretation of 
> the law is.

The same challenges have been in various ways for all 
technological advances. The difference is in the technology, 
not in the rights and wrongs. Enforcing a law is never 
difficult, if the will to do so is there. About web pages I 
would generally defer to you, with the odd exception I point 
to. But there is no reason in the technology itself for any 
change in copyright.

Attitudes may be changing, though I see no real sign of it. 
Use of the technology to claim that 'free' is right seems 
only special pleading. The major explosion in book 
publishing since 2002 is almost entirely reliant on the law 
of copyright to make it viable. Since it empowers the 
individual creative and small publisher more than the 
gorillas I will continue to fight for its continuance and 
observance.

> Ah, we have come to Godwin's Law for Writers: every 
> argument among
> writers comes down to prescriptive vs descriptive 
> (linguistics),
> except here, we're dealing with the slightly less esoteric 
> "strict
> interpretation of the law" vs "reality."

;-))) What a lovely 'Dawkins style' jump of logic. We are 
arguing about what is the reality, I thought, and the 
putting of the law on the other side of the table is an 
attempt to pre-empt the argument. The reality is that far 
and away the vast majority of readers pay for copyright 
material, and show no sign of expecting not to. The law is 
not challenged by them.

Those who do challenge it have to show that the change is 
likely to be of social benefit. That is the way changing law 
works! In all the discussions and arguemnts I have had I 
still wait to see either this argument or the question of 
cultural improvement answered in any by the vaguest way.

>
>> Frankly Google's use of the 'fair use'
>> argument is mere 800lb gorilla challenge, not a valid 
>> claim;
>> deep pockets always win in a litigious society, and the 
>> law
>> is made a nonsense of '...a h'ass'..
>>
>
> Until someone litigates it, Google can say whatever it 
> wants. When
> someone litigates it, then the courts will have a chance 
> to rule.
> Until then... **shrug.**

It is already litigated. Google has made it pretty clear it 
intends to use its deep pocket to change the law by doing 
what it likes. The has now attracted the interest of the 
Justice Department by the way.

>
>>>>> I still fail to see merit in the orphan works 
>>>>> argument. It
>> makes no difference whether you or I know who is the 
>> holder
>> or owner of rights. It is still not ours to do with as we
>> wish. If, for any particular work, there is a case to be
>> made then that is where the courts fit the bill of 
>> deciding.
>
> With the term of copyright exceeding the life span of 
> "generations"
> and with large corporations pushing for ever longer terms 
> (and getting
> them), the orphan woks problem is going to be bigger and 
> bigger and
> bigger.

Again I see no orphan 'problem'; only a desire by others to 
take licence over copyright. As regards the length of 
copyright that is a matter awaiting any good argument. Till 
it has one the length will go to the loudest voice or the 
deepest pocket.

>
>> Actually I would like to see  *any* satisfactory argument
>> for *any* 'orphan work' being vital to be reprinted. The 
>> ony
>> thing that seems to me to enter into it is pound or 
>> dollar
>> signs in someone's eyes. The idea that because someone 
>> would
>> like a copy of something they had a right to assume 
>> decision
>> making on it applies in no other commercial field I know 
>> of.
>
> The why reprint public domain works? They can't possibly 
> be anything
> but interchangable with anything currently in print. I 
> mean, they are
> slightly older, so they aren't marketable in the least. No 
> money to be
> made there... oh, wait... the market for such books is 
> HUGE. And some
> of them actually do appear to be unique. And people want 
> them!

I am not aware this is the same as orphan works. Commercial 
decisions are just that, and have little to do with any 
literary or theoretical concerns. Have you any idea how many 
works i nthe public domain are very unlikely to ever be 
printed again, or go online? The comparison is chalk and 
cheese.

>
> The reason why this sort of this is like no other 
> commercial field is
> because IP is like no other commercial field.
>
> I'm actually the owner of a piece of IP that is commonly 
> assumed to be
> an orphan work. It's a font I designed back in 1993 that 
> still floats
> around the net. The Emacs groups supposedly wanted to use 
> it as their
> default font but could not find the rights holder to ask 
> if they could
> distribute it. It didn't make the distro.
>
> Anyway,
>
> dej

I have seen arguments on this both ways, and I am sure you 
have decided how to handle it. It will depend on many 
factors for each individual faced with it.

Anyway (t o echo) it is time for me to wind up my 
contributions on this issue. I feel it has been given an 
excellent airing and a lot of the ground has been covered 
with a great deal of courtesy and expertise. I would 
particularly like to thank dej and the two Chris's for a 
very interesting and stretching set of exchanges. I hope 
many have found it useful.

Joseph Harris 



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