Google digitizing all books

[John Dunn]

Here are some more observations.  First, if Google is contemplating reaching an out-of-court settlement in the U.S., it presumably means that it cannot be certain, to say the least, of being able to defend its actions in a U.S. court.  Where this leaves those who live and work elsewhere is less clear, especially since some jurisdictions do not allow class actions or limit their scope.  Second, the convention, at least in the U.K., is that 10% constitutes 'fair use' for photo-copying purposes, and it is therefore conceivable that some publishers might consider the same proportion acceptable for digitisation.

While I fully accept the arguments advanced by Sarah Hurst and Paul Gallagher, I do have a question concerning the extent to which the model they defend is sustainable.  At the other end of the publishing industry the Internet has already brought about changes which may be seen as favourable (by those residents of Italy who wish to buy English-language books) or unfavourable (by those who use or own independent book shops outside large cities).  The structure and the economics of publishing in academic journals are also undergoing changes, mostly in the areas of medicine and the natural sciences; this, so it is alleged, is in part a consequence of the way in which certain academic publishers have supposedly misused their monopoly position to push up journal prices to unsustainable levels. 

In this context it may be noted that we are not a single community.  Those who work full-time for academic institutions may well regard any income accruing from their publications as a contingent perquisite.  Their chief concerns are the fact of publication and dissemination, especially in a context where advancement depends on publication and where research is increasingly assessed by bibliometric methods.  Their main interest in their intellectual property is the preservation of their academic integrity, i.e. ensuring that what appears under their name is what they actually wrote and that their words are not (mis)used in a way that might compromise their reputation among their peers.

Those whose income depends either entirely or in to a significant extent on publication will, however, want to see the maintenance of intellectual property rights in order to ensure that they continue to properly and fairly rewarded for their endeavours; in particular, they will want to make certain that they do not suffer from the unintended consequences of developments that are perceived as being unambiguously positive by those at the 'consuming' end of the process.   One consequence of these different interests may be the development of different models of publication, with the strictly academic model becoming increasingly divergent from those which depend on other economic and intellectual relationships.

John Dunn.

 

John Dunn
Honorary Research Fellow, SMLC (Slavonic Studies)
University of Glasgow, Scotland

Address:
Via Carolina Coronedi Berti 6
40137 Bologna
Italy
Tel.: +39 051/1889 8661
e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk
johnanthony.dunn at fastwebnet.it

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