Germany Supports the G-Library

On Wednesday, a German court told German book publisher WBG that it's suit against the Google Library Project was unlikely to succeed. WBG's petition for a preliminary injunction against Google was then dropped. Though this has no bearing on the Author's Guild's suit here, it is worth noting that the German court rejected the copyright infringement claim since the Google Library Project snippets hardly differ from the snippets on an ordinary Google search result page, which don't constitute copyright infringement either. Google is delighted with the result.

What's interesting then is that if US courts decide the G-Library violates copyright law, while Germany says it's ok, does that not create the possibility that the G-Library would be legally insulated if it were hosted in Germany? US copyright would not supersede German copyright and the only response would seem to be restricting domestic internet access to such a site. Alas, we would have the Great Copyright-Wall of America. Doubtful, but not impossible, which is kind of sad.

Scholar's Copyright Project

Here's a way, if you're a scholar, to ensure that your publisher gives you the right to post your work online and openly available to the public.

Is Google Killing the Internet?

An interesting post from The Motley Fool claims that Google is destroying the Internet with its AdSense program. The idea that monetizing contextual ads encourages the creation of link farms, splogs, and scraper sites, which in turn lessens the quality of search results (as well as discourages businesses from paying into the system) is a legitimate qualm that Google remains tight-lipped about. Google has already settled one click fraud case for $90 million (a mere drop in the bucket) and the extent of click fraud is still debated, though no one debates that it is a big business.

As is apparent, there is no incentive for Google to try and halt click fraud. Not only does Google profit from the tactic, but when they try and remove sites that violate its policies it gets sued.

In terms of copyright, there should be cause for concern in how some of these sites that exploit Google use and misuse the content from other sites. While it may not be full-fledged copyright infringement (and probably shouldn't be considered as such in most cases), plagiarism is becoming more of an issue online. But at the same time, Google essential allows us to ferret out plagiarism more easily than ever before. How to figure it all out I don't know, but to say Google is destroying the Internet may be a bit of a stretch, highlighting the point that just because something changes doesn't necessarily mean its a sign that the world is going to end.

The Quintessential American Academic Superstar

The Guardian interviews Lawrence Lessig.

Google Admits China Mistake

Oft criticized for supporting The Great Firewall, Google co-founder Sergi Brin admitted that when it comes to China, "perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense" in suggesting that the original justification that Google could "compromise [their] principles but provide ultimately more information for the Chinese and be a more effective service and perhaps make more of a difference" might be a loser. Here is a good list of the sites that Google.cn censors. With such censorship and amid growing concerns in America about the information sites like Google obtain from users - remember that Yahoo! helped put a Chinese journalist in jail - standing firm in its motto of "do no evil" will help return credibility here when it comes to privacy and the like.

Captain Copyright a Fraud

I posted on this earlier, but the story keeps getting weirder and more ugly.

From Techdirt:

The amazing adventures of Captain Copyright just keep getting more bizarre. This is the Canadian superhero (or, maybe not, since superheroes may be owned by Marvel) that is supposed to be brainwashing teaching young children about copyrights, mostly from the point of view of the big content companies who are more interested in protecting a business model than actually looking at the real issues related to copyright. It didn't take long, though, for Captain Copyright to come under all sorts of criticism for his ridiculous linking policy to his misuse of copyrighted material to his ridiculous ban on cutting and pasting any content from the site. While the folks behind Captain Copyright haven't publicly said anything while this discussion has gone on, they have been caught repeatedly fiddling with the content that is being made fun of online. Even worse though, is that some are pointing out that there's already a different Captain Copyright and (you guessed it), this new one might be infringing on the rights of the old one (so far, no one has confirmed if the folks behind the Canadian Captain Copyright cleared the rights with the Singaporean Captain Copyright). Wonder how they'll edit that on their site? Of course, they could use this as a chance to teach students how silly it is to overly protect some concepts, and how derivative works can be original in their own right without needing to pay everyone who came before. Somehow, that seems unlikely to happen.

And while search engines sometimes get a bad rap for facilitating infringement, this is an example of search engines ferreting it out.

Google Spreadsheets

Looks like Google is opening a new front in its perceived assault on Microsoft by introducing Google Spreadsheets. As of right now it's a Google Labs project in a limited test, but the same old privacy questions keep coming up with each new Google product: what does Google know about me? As Google creeps into web-based office programs (is a Google Word far behind?) it will open up small businesses to the kind of privacy threats that individuals currently have to deal with. Google's privacy policy leaves consumers a bit wanting in terms of knowing that 3rd parties - like the NSA or FBI in particular - won't be rifling through their data. Fortunately, the Spreadsheet privacy policy says:

You may permanently delete any files you create in Google Spreadsheets. Because of the way we maintain this service, residual copies of your files and other information associated with your account may remain on our servers for a week.

While the Gmail privacy policy says:

You may organize or delete your messages through your Gmail account or terminate your account through the Google Account section of Gmail settings. Such deletions or terminations will take immediate effect in your view. Residual copies of deleted messages and accounts may take up to 60 days to be deleted from our active servers and may remain in our offline backup systems. (emphasis added).

Though I don't know if this is a difference based on technological limits, but Google certainly provides more privacy when it comes to Spreadsheets than Gmail. One can only wonder whether this is to soothe businesses who would be fearful of using Spreadsheets. If so, the motto may be in further trouble.

Signing DMCA Take-Downs with Google

Pladiarism Today has a nice post on how to deal with Google regarding DMCA take-down notices. According to its DMCA policy page, Google requires written (ie. not electronic) notification of your complaint. Microsoft, Yahoo!, LiveJournal and MySpace all accept DMCA take-down notices via email, which puts Google in a unique position in accepting only physical complaints.

Section 512(c)(3)(A)(i) of the DMCA provides for both written and electronic signatures attached to notifications of potential copyright infringement. PT gives a good explanation of how to deal with this difference and how to hack around Google's restrictions, but also suggests that perhaps Google has a deeper problem with electronic signatures generally. Admittedly, such would be silly considering all the things people already do by signing (or not signing things at all) electronically, however, perhaps Google should change their policy and step in line with everyone else.

I think there may be something more to this at least in that electronic signatures, or the lack thereof, remove a psychological block that people may have regarding commitment. Where the physical act of having to sign something physical makes us step back and question what it is we are signing, and perhaps we are more likely to question because the person handing us the document is a source of information that makes questions easier to deal with, such a support system is lost online. Few people read end user license agreements and simply click 'Accept' without thinking or knowing what we are accepting. I wonder whether as many people would still blankly accept if a clerk provided us with a copy and talked it over with us before we signed it, much like signing up for a cell phone. Granted, the cell phone business may not be the best example of responsible consumer behavior, but consumers might at least be empowered to make more rational decisions.

Google is probably justified with their policy because of the extra burden it puts on those complaining of infringement. The extra burden is not great - merely whip up a letter and put it in the mail - and since much more effort is required to fulfill the other requirements of such notices, the incidental burden of providing Google with a hard copy doesn't seem all that onerous. Rather, it seems an effective way to ensure that only those with legitimate claims (at least those most motivated to go to the mailbox) take up the time and effort of the G-lawyer Unit. It makes a person step back, at least for a second, and think about whether it's really worth it. If it stops even some erroneous claims then the policy has worked beautifully. Hurrah to Google, and yes, there should be a more standard way of dealing with DMCA notices amongst the various services, but I think Google's way is the way to go.

Oh Canada

Meet Captain Copyright, the latest attempt to teach kids about the virtues of copyright law. This one-sided educational affair from Access Copyright, supporting all the fantasies of Big Content, is being taught in many Canadian schools to kids anywhere from first through eighth grade. Misleading is probably an understatement and Michael Geist has done a good job going through the teaching materials to highlight the extent of the deception (ie. you can't copy music for private use). Activity 5, directed at third through sixth graders, is a student letter writing campaign to the editors of local newspapers about copyright. I'm not sure I can think of a more disingenuous tactic to feign public support for oppressive copyrights then by goading students (we're talking 7 to 10 year olds here) to join Big Content's astroturf campaign.

This kind of behavior isn't all that new from those seeking to create a copyright owner biased copyright system. However, if we were really going to be sticklers about the law, like good ol' Captain Copyright would like us to be, then Captain Copyright would be guilty of copyright infringement. Oh the irony!

To let you know what Captain Copyright thinks of fair use, the disclaimer provides that:

...permission to link [to Captain Copyright] is explicitly withheld from any website the contents of which may, in the opinion of the Access Copyright, be damaging or cause harm to the reputation of Access Copyright.

And:

You are not permitted to copy or cut from any page or its HTML source code to the Windows™ clipboard (or equivalent on other platforms) onto any other website.

Oops. I suppose they won't like accusations that their site is intellectually dishonest or that I didn't bother to retype myself these quotes from their legal disclaimer. Well, the problem with these restriction is that Captain Copyright quotes Wikipedia in its materials regarding ISBN's and the restrictions violates Wikipedia's GNU License which requires that anyone who uses Wikipedia's free material must also share it freely. I wonder how Captain Copyright would deal with that moral dilemma.

As a further note, in one of the comics on the site, it turns out that Captain Copyright's is the owner of a campus bookstore by day. In this particular episode, he convinces several students to abandon the discount book store and to go buy the REAL books. What a perfect lesson to be teaching kids! What these children will soon learn is the benefit of going to college is the prospect of buying several $100+ books each semester that can't be resold because the publisher puts out a new edition every year.

Here's to hoping that the youth are smart enough to see through the scam. But since kids are generally deemed too dumb to think for themselves (see protecting kids from cigarettes, booze, and MySpace) they are never given the information they need to actually begin to think for themselves. If they did, they probably would disagree with their parents sooner or later, which would defeat the whole purpose of teaching them the lessons they "need to learn." All I have to say is that if Joe Camel ain't legit, then Captain Copyright has to say aloha as well.