Scripting News: Google and books

Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.

Google and books

Look at all the people saying stuff about Microsoft's opinion of Google's scanning of all those books. Lots of comments, but it's so simply obvious that Google is wrong. In so many ways.

First, it ought to be opt-in. The argument that Google indexes the web so why can't they index books the same way has one huge problem -- the web grew around search engines, and the book industry didn't. To come in, after the fact, and try to use the web as precedent is to confuse the order in which things happened.

Second, okay, if it can't be opt-in, let it be opt-out. In the web we have the Robots Exclusion Protocol that allows you to say that a search engine can't index your site. Where's the equivalent of that for Google's book indexer?

Third, there's a little thing called the Open Content Alliance, that Google could join, if they didn't think they were the last word in everything related to everything, which it seems pretty clear they do.

Fourth, there is a little thing called copyright, and I think it clearly prohibits the wholesale duplication of stuff that other people created. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but that seems kind of obvious.

Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:00:33 PM

~About the Author~

Dave Winer, 55, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.

"The protoblogger." - NY Times.

"The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World.

One of BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

"Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time.

"The father of blogging and RSS." - BBC.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

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Feb Apr