Google and books

Tuesday, March 06, 2007 by Dave Winer.

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.