Forced Open Source

I'm all for the Open Source movement. I don't do any kind of software development myself, so it's not my time and effort that's being put out there for free... and as a private individual, I stand to benefit liek OMG!crazy from the developers who put free content out there. In my head, I call these people suckers. I'd never do it.

Why I'd never do it is another matter. The content that I would be able to write is fiction, and perhaps some non-fiction about writing. That's the only thing I know something about, and it's the one thing I would like doing... it wouldn't feel like work.

But at this stage in my career (if you can call it that, hyuk hyuk) I can't afford to do it. I'm still paying my dues in the publishing industry. I work for peanuts, and I desperately need those peanuts as well the the exposure my work is perhaps getting me. I'm not about to set aside a huge chunk of my time to work for less than peanuts, for nothing at all. I figure I'll do that when my career gets big enough for me to earn a decent living on it. That's the time to pay the community back... not now when I can't afford it. Besides, that's when my content will actually reach people and be treated with the respect it deserves if I do put it out there for free: who wants to read a largely unpublished writer's advice to newbies? The reason why Holly Lisle's articles are so popular and well-regarded is not just because they're good... it's because it's proven to work: she's written 25+ novels by following her own advice.

Anyway. Point is: to me, open source projects are free knowledge that I have come to be thankful for. I appreciate it, I take my hats off to those who give their time, even if in my more cynical moments I call them suckers.

But what Google's just decided to do is beyond open source. It's forced open source.

They want to put 'snippets' of writers' content on the internet, without permission or compensation, in the name of making the info accessible to everyone (and, oh, making the quick buck by selling ad space on the pages with content) - that's bullshit. If you didn't create the content yourself, you have no business going about making the information available for free.

Legally speaking, there are provisions for what is called ‘fair use’. Most authors, recording artists and actors know all about this. It permits an organization to use a small piece of copyrighted material without paying the copyright holder. A good example is when a radio program airs a 5 or 10 second clip of sound from a movie during a review. The holder of the movie copyrights do not get paid for it. Not directly. Indirectly they are getting free publicity and that has value.

Yahoo has been doing this kind of thing for years by putting up movie trailers that you can see on your computer. I don’t know if the holder of the movie copyright pays for this publicity or not. Probably not. I expect Yahoo just does it for the ad revenue. Amazon permits you to see inside a book on occasion, not very much, but a few pages. The amount most shoppers at a book store would read before deciding to buy or not buy the book. And Amazon gets permission from the copyright holder to do this.

So, with that in mind (along with the fact that I am no lawyer) it looks like it might be legal. SO LONG as they keep it to a very, very small piece of the book in question. Like the blurb on the back cover and a list of key words such as character names.

On the moral side, I don't think it's right.

If they are basing an entire business around the use of copyrighted material and generating income from the use of that material, my immediate reaction is that the creators should be paid. Sure, if they are very limited on the amount of information that they put online, then it could actually HELP the author by being additional publicity (of a minor sort of course) for his or her works. Kind of like a movie trailer on-line. But only if there is a convenient button or banner to click on if you want to buy the book you are looking at.

But who knows what these guys mean by a 'snippet'? The language they're using seems to indicate they want to put up fairly large chunks of writers' works - possibly a couple of chapters, certainly more than 'fair use' would allow.

Whatever happened to 'Don't Be Evil'?