Digitizing books: Authors Guild has it backward

Everyone's got an opinion about Google's plan to scan books.

The typically down-the-middle Mike Langberg in today's San Jose Mercury News: Google's libraries project facing writers' block.

Vin Scelsa, host of the show "Idiot's Delight" on Sirius Satellite Radio, in a letter to the NY Times: Keep books alive.

The Authors Guild's objections to Google's plan to offer a searchable database of the collections of five libraries is analogous to the Recording Industry Association of America's imposition of limitations on digital radio (including "terrestrial" stations with Internet simulcasts) through its lobbying of Congress during creation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. ...

If authors want their work to survive, it had better be in digital libraries. If record companies want to establish new artists, they should support outlets that offer exposure. Why tie the very hands that are trying help these artists achieve their goals?

Nick Taylor, president of the Authors Guild, in a letter to the Times: Google and the Authors.

And the op-ed piece by Tim O'Reilly that started the letter exchange above: Search and Rescue. Excerpt:

AUTHORS struggle, mostly in vain, against their fated obscurity. According to Nielsen Bookscan, which tracks sales from major booksellers, only 2 percent of the 1.2 million unique titles sold in 2004 had sales of more than 5,000 copies. Against this backdrop, the recent Authors Guild suit against the Google Library Project is poignantly wrongheaded.

The Authors Guild claims that Google's plan to make the collections of five major libraries searchable online violates copyright law and thus harms authors' interests. As both an author and publisher, I find the Guild's position to be exactly backward. Google Library promises to be a boon to authors, publishers and readers if Google sticks to its stated goal of creating a tool that helps people discover (and potentially pay for) copyrighted works. ...

I'm with Google on this one. It would certainly be considered fair use, if, for example, I circulated a catalog of my favorite books, including a handful of quotations from each book that helps people to decide whether to buy a copy. In my mind, providing such snippets algorithmically on demand, as Google does, doesn't change that dynamic. Google allows click-through to the entire book only if the book is in the public domain or if publishers have opted in to the program. If it's unclear who owns the rights to a book, only the snippets are displayed.

A search engine for books will be revolutionary in its benefits. Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors than copyright infringement, or even outright piracy. While publishers invest in each of their books, they depend on bestsellers to keep afloat. They typically throw their products into the market to see what sticks and cease supporting what doesn't, so an author has had just one chance to reach readers. Until now.

Google promises an alternative to the obscurity imposed on most books. It makes that great corpus of less-than-bestsellers accessible to all. By pointing to a huge body of print works online, Google will offer a way to promote books that publishers have thrown away, creating an opportunity for readers to track them down and buy them. Even online sellers like Amazon offer only a small fraction of the university libraries' titles. While there are many unanswered questions about how businesses will help consumers buy the books they've found through a search engine for printed materials that is as powerful as Google's current Web search, there's great likelihood that Google Print's Library Project will create new markets for forgotten content. In one bold stroke, Google will give new value to millions of orphaned works.

I'm sorry to see authors buy into the old-school protectionism of the Authors Guild, not realizing they're acting against their own self-interest. Their resistance can come only from a failure to understand the nature of the program. Google Library is intended to help readers discover copyrighted works, not to give copies away. It's a tremendous service to authors that will help them beat the dismal odds of publishing as usual.

I'm with Google and O'Reilly, and hope to see him when his Web 2.0 conference begins Wednesday.