Comments on: Legislation and Litigation: Vanderbilt News and Google http://peterbrantley.com/legislation-and-litigation-vanderbilt-news-and-google-138 Peter Brantley's thoughts and speculations Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:39:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Daniel Brandt http://peterbrantley.com/legislation-and-litigation-vanderbilt-news-and-google-138/comment-page-1#comment-50 Daniel Brandt Sun, 31 May 2009 00:38:58 +0000 http://peterbrantley.com/?p=138#comment-50 Yes, there needs to be legislation on the scope of fair use with respect to orphan works, as an antidote to the proposed Google monopoly. We would all love to get some clarity about whether Section 107 "fair use" applies to Google's copying. Even more intriguing is whether the Section 108 "library exception" means that the University of Michigan can assist Google in copying its entire library, even though that University was perfectly aware in 2004 that Google planned to splash ads, and link to booksellers, on its snippets of Michigan's copyrighted books. But your last sentence falls short when you refer to "our country." The debate on Google Books is extremely U.S.-centric. The U.S. has copyright treaty agreements with 160 countries. Google's market share for Internet search is substantially higher in some European countries than the reported 60 to 70 percent share it enjoys in the U.S., and Google is copying copyrighted books in many languages. Most countries don't even have any "fair use" in their laws. A grass-roots effort, called the "Heidelberg Appeal," began in Germany and captured the attention of German politicians. Britain and France joined with Germany, and managed to urge the European Union to investigate the Google book settlement. Not only are some of Google's participating universities to blame for their poor performance on the Google Library Project since 2004 (for example, even public universities went along with Google's nondisclosure demands), but I also blame the four-year silence of the American Library Association. The fact that Google got this far with its Library Project is a reflection on American libraries in general. And the fact that the ALA still does not oppose the proposed settlement is a reflection on them in particular. The international public interest is at issue here, not merely the American public interest. Yes, there needs to be legislation on the scope of fair use with respect to orphan works, as an antidote to the proposed Google monopoly. We would all love to get some clarity about whether Section 107 “fair use” applies to Google’s copying. Even more intriguing is whether the Section 108 “library exception” means that the University of Michigan can assist Google in copying its entire library, even though that University was perfectly aware in 2004 that Google planned to splash ads, and link to booksellers, on its snippets of Michigan’s copyrighted books.

But your last sentence falls short when you refer to “our country.” The debate on Google Books is extremely U.S.-centric. The U.S. has copyright treaty agreements with 160 countries. Google’s market share for Internet search is substantially higher in some European countries than the reported 60 to 70 percent share it enjoys in the U.S., and Google is copying copyrighted books in many languages. Most countries don’t even have any “fair use” in their laws.

A grass-roots effort, called the “Heidelberg Appeal,” began in Germany and captured the attention of German politicians. Britain and France joined with Germany, and managed to urge the European Union to investigate the Google book settlement.

Not only are some of Google’s participating universities to blame for their poor performance on the Google Library Project since 2004 (for example, even public universities went along with Google’s nondisclosure demands), but I also blame the four-year silence of the American Library Association. The fact that Google got this far with its Library Project is a reflection on American libraries in general. And the fact that the ALA still does not oppose the proposed settlement is a reflection on them in particular.

The international public interest is at issue here, not merely the American public interest.

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