New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | October 31, 2005

What does Google Print have in common with a government seizure of your home for the benefit of corporate developers? Not a damn thing, says Tim Lee.

Comments

|10.31.05 @ 2:19PM|#

Well, no, it doesn't.

Yet again, another reminder why I hate both camps in the IP wars.

|10.31.05 @ 2:21PM|#

I don't want to change the subject, but "corporate" developers?

God save us all from commercial developers that incorporate?

|10.31.05 @ 2:29PM|#

Quite clearly, copyright is a complicated issue. However, one bright line rule that does a good job of solving 99% of issues is:

Your rights under your copyright end when it becomes a right to dictate how I control my physical property.

So, you can't tell me I can't make a certain piece of hardware. You can only prosecute those who use it to violate your rights.

|10.31.05 @ 2:46PM|#

I'll comment as soon as I finish finding WMV 9 codecs for my Linux system.

daksya|10.31.05 @ 2:53PM|#

Anyone have stats on commercial potential of various comsumption media? Like "95% of mainstream fiction earn 95% of their gross revenue within the first 15 months". If we had access to such data, then one could draw a line. Of course, this doesn't incorporate dynamic feedback loops, but it's a start.

Larry A|10.31.05 @ 3:46PM|#

The Google Print optimum response is obvious. Go voluntary.

• Independent publishers like Zumaya, which is soon to publish my novel, sign on.
• Readers can find books on subjects they Google for, and buy them.
• New York publishers get their bottom line whupped.
• Google Print participation approaches 100%.

|10.31.05 @ 4:27PM|#

Someone's being facetious.

|10.31.05 @ 5:27PM|#

I'll tell you what else...

I want candy, bubblegum and taffy.
Skip to the sweet shop with my sweetheart, Sandy.
Got my pennies saved. so I'm a sugar daddy.
I'm her Hume Cronyn, she my Jessica Tandy.
I want candy!

I need candy, bubble gum and taffy,
Gonna get your ass beat nasty,
Do it so your dad sees, embarrass your whole family
Just cuz you came between a kid and his candy.
I need candy, any kind will do
Don't care if it's nutritious or FDA approved.
It's gonna make me spaz like bobcats on booze,
A hyperactive juice that only I can produce
To fuel a giant drill to bore straight into hell
Releasing ancient demons from their sleep-forever spell
So they can walk upon the earth and get resituated
And hawk the diet pills MC Pee Pants has created.

Mess up the mix, mix up the mess
Come on down, yo here's the address
6-1-2 Wharf Avenue
6-1-2 Wharf Avenue

Happy Halloween, bitches!

|10.31.05 @ 6:02PM|#

The language of the DMCA concerns access control, not "copy-protection". Circumvention for the purpose of e-book accessibility was exempted from the DMCA in 2003.

daksya, 17 economists filed an amici brief in support of Eldred, and Justice Breyer elaborated on their analysis in his dissent. Neither frames the issue as you have, but they highlight the negligible economic incentive to a copyright holder granted by CTEA or any hypothetical further extension. If there is a line, we're way over it.

The Wine Commonsewer|10.31.05 @ 7:43PM|#

There is nothing inherently wrong with intellectual property rights it is merely, like most things touched by government, a problem of creating or defining a coherent, rational, system of law to deal with IP.

The prevailing wisdom of the majority of the Reason staff notwithstanding, IP is not bunk. The laws dealing with IP are what is bunk.

The Wine Commonsewer|10.31.05 @ 8:28PM|#

Oh and BTW, for anyone who doesn't know, by burning your I-Tunes downloads to CD and copying them back to the HD as MP3's you can get rid of that DRM stuff.

|10.31.05 @ 9:26PM|#

The problem with the idea of "Intellectual Property" is that it attempts to put boundaries around what is inherenty an intangible thing--an idea. This is qualitatively different than your house, your car, your wallet. I can't steal an intangible thing. Indeed, I may come up with the very same idea without every having met you.

The purpose of patents and copyrights is to eventually put these things into the public domain so that new things may grow out of them at minimal cost. But the current patent and copyright regime tilts way too far in favor of creators, locking up idea for decades. Slowing down the innovation that they were intended to create.

There are patents on your genes. There are patents on mathematical formulae and business methods (which was recently expanded). A book written when an author is 20, if he dies at 90, is effectivly locked up (and postentially lost) for well over a century.

I'm all in favor of patents and copyright. But in order to return to its original purpose, it must be reformed.

|10.31.05 @ 10:02PM|#

DRM crippled CD: a bizarre tale in 4 parts

sony pwns your computer

|11.1.05 @ 4:32AM|#

The purpose behind copyrights were to encourage innovation by giving authors of content monopolies to benefit from it for a while. Of course since congress extended copyrights to 98 years beyond the authors death, that has become entirely facetious. The guiding principle behind copyright should be innovation. Alas currently, it is about monopolization of copyrights, especially the post-mortem kind.

|11.1.05 @ 3:28PM|#

from what i understand of the google case, the guild is upset over the fact that google is copying entire works that they do not own. i don't think there is an issue with google purchasing a book and providing excerpts from it. the issue is that google never purchased the book but keeps an electronic copy of the entire thing.