I haven't been writing about Google Print/Book Search because so many others are, and I don't really have a strong opinion on it either way. But here's one side issue that irritates me, and that I haven't seen mentioned.
You often see pro-Google people making statements along the lines of "this isn't Napster for books, dummy -- nobody's talking about making these books available for free!" (example). Well, no, Google is not creating Napster for books, but this is a little dishonest. It's naive to think this project won't encourage those who want a Napster for books. You can bet that some clever geeks will hack through Google's copy-protection schemes and figure out a way for you to save this content. And it'll probably be publicized widely and seized on as the way things ought to be.
Why am I so sure of this? Because it already happened, last year when Google was testing an early version. Some hackers figured out how to save the content, and it was publicized on BoingBoing, one of the web's most popular sites. See Boing Boing: HOWTO break Google Print DRM (October 8, 2004).
Um. Wait, that's more dishonest than the publishers who *are* saying that Google is trying to offer books for free, when that's clearly not what's happening?
Can you really say it's unfair of us to point out that Google isn't offering up books for free? They're not. It's a simple fact. It's not dishonest at all. If people do figure out how to break the system, then that's a different issue, and let's deal with *that*.
Posted by: Mike Masnick | Monday, November 21, 2005 at 07:07 PM
I'm not saying it's the worst offense among all the parties, just that it's something that's rarely acknowledged. To me that seems a little disingenuous.
Posted by: Kevin | Tuesday, November 22, 2005 at 08:06 AM