re: [gutvol-d] Commercial paper editions of PG texts
is it news to anyone here that some people sell p.g. e-texts? i should hope not. those people don't irritate me. indeed, in the sense that they offer customers the option of a hard-copy printing of an e-text, i think they're providing a service. so in addition to recovering the costs of printing and binding and shipping and maintaining a business that deals with willing buyers, i think they deserve a little profit for providing that service... after all, they "own" that public-domain material just as much as you or i "own" it. i also don't even get mad if these people -- in protecting their business model -- restrict viewing the pages of their books within the google book-search system... no, i think the blame falls on _our_ shoulders, because as the people dedicated to providing full and free access to the public domain, we are failing in our mission by not ensuring that google has a no-pages-restricted entity in its book-search for each and every public-domain book that they have. and i firmly believe we should remedy that situation, soon... -bowerbird
Bowerbird@aol.com writes:
after all, they "own" that public-domain material just as much as you or i "own" it.
Yes, but PG doesn't claim a copyright on the PD material, unlike Kessenger and the others. It's a shame that they are able to hide a PD book behind a copyrighted cover.
no, i think the blame falls on _our_ shoulders, because as the people dedicated to providing full and free access to the public domain, we are failing in our mission by not ensuring that google has a no-pages-restricted entity in its book-search for each and every public-domain book that they have.
How many PD books have you found in Google Book Search that were not visible? Did you report them to Google? If not, some of the blame falls on _your_ shoulders.
On Wed, 1 Mar 2006, Bruce Albrecht wrote:
How many PD books have you found in Google Book Search that were not visible? Did you report them to Google? If not, some of the blame falls on _your_ shoulders.
I don't think it works this way. If the books are in there because the publisher added them and the publisher claims they are under copyright there is nothing you can do to change it. -- Greg Weeks http://durendal.org:8080/greg/
On Wed, 1 Mar 2006 11:24:30 -0500 (EST), Greg Weeks <greg@durendal.org> wrote: |On Wed, 1 Mar 2006, Bruce Albrecht wrote: | |> How many PD books have you found in Google Book Search that were not |> visible? Did you report them to Google? If not, some of the blame |> falls on _your_ shoulders. | |I don't think it works this way. If the books are in there because the |publisher added them and the publisher claims they are under copyright |there is nothing you can do to change it. AFAIK the copyright notice is valid, but only applies to the page and line layout plus cover layout of the new paper edition, not the PG text. Not that they would tell you that. -- Dave Fawthrop <dave hyphenologist co uk> Freedom of Speech, Expression, Religion, and Democracy are the keys to Civilization, together with legal acceptance of Fundamental Human rights.
On Wed, Mar 01, 2006 at 05:54:36PM +0000, Dave Fawthrop wrote:
On Wed, 1 Mar 2006 11:24:30 -0500 (EST), Greg Weeks <greg@durendal.org> wrote:
|On Wed, 1 Mar 2006, Bruce Albrecht wrote: | |> How many PD books have you found in Google Book Search that were not |> visible? Did you report them to Google? If not, some of the blame |> falls on _your_ shoulders.
(There are *many*, but in many cases the print publisher claimed a copyright inappropriately or imprecisely.
|I don't think it works this way. If the books are in there because the |publisher added them and the publisher claims they are under copyright |there is nothing you can do to change it.
AFAIK the copyright notice is valid, but only applies to the page and line layout plus cover layout of the new paper edition, not the PG text. Not that they would tell you that.
Not in our opinion (which has been vetted by several expert copyright lawyers): No Sweat of the Brow Copyright http://www.gutenberg.org/howto/sweat-no-c -- Greg
On Wed, 1 Mar 2006 10:55:17 -0800, Greg Newby <gbnewby@pglaf.org> wrote: |On Wed, Mar 01, 2006 at 05:54:36PM +0000, Dave Fawthrop wrote: |> On Wed, 1 Mar 2006 11:24:30 -0500 (EST), Greg Weeks <greg@durendal.org> |> wrote: |> |> |On Wed, 1 Mar 2006, Bruce Albrecht wrote: |> | |> |> How many PD books have you found in Google Book Search that were not |> |> visible? Did you report them to Google? If not, some of the blame |> |> falls on _your_ shoulders. | |(There are *many*, but in many cases the print publisher claimed |a copyright inappropriately or imprecisely. | |> |I don't think it works this way. If the books are in there because the |> |publisher added them and the publisher claims they are under copyright |> |there is nothing you can do to change it. |> |> AFAIK the copyright notice is valid, but only applies to the page and line ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |> layout plus cover layout of the new paper edition, not the PG text. Not ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |> that they would tell you that. | |Not in our opinion (which has been vetted by several expert |copyright lawyers): | | No Sweat of the Brow Copyright | http://www.gutenberg.org/howto/sweat-no-c Which is what I said :-( -- Dave Fawthrop <dave hyphenologist co uk> Freedom of Speech, Expression, Religion, and Democracy are the keys to Civilization, together with legal acceptance of Fundamental Human rights.
On Wed, Mar 01, 2006 at 09:57:11AM -0600, Bruce Albrecht wrote:
... How many PD books have you found in Google Book Search that were not visible? Did you report them to Google? If not, some of the blame falls on _your_ shoulders.
How is such notification done? To easily find some examples, look for Jane Austen's works, H.G. Wells, and other well-known long-dead authors. Note that they seem to use a ridiculous date for "world wide" public domain...something in the 1800s, rather than a "US-Safe" cutoff of 1923. I think they (Google) are creating ambiguity when there is none, at least in the US. -- Greg
Greg Newby writes:
On Wed, Mar 01, 2006 at 09:57:11AM -0600, Bruce Albrecht wrote:
... How many PD books have you found in Google Book Search that were not visible? Did you report them to Google? If not, some of the blame falls on _your_ shoulders.
How is such notification done?
Well, when I've been doing book searches at Google, and it comes up with a book that doesn't say that it was provided by a publisher, and the book information claims it was copyrighted before 1923, or I can find the copyright in a snippet, I use Google's feeback link to report that the book is incorrectly flagged as being in copyright so that they will fix the status. In one case, they fixed it after a 4-5 email exchange. In other cases, they simply told me that they were aware that some books were incorrectly identified as in copyright.
On Wed, Mar 01, 2006 at 08:23:47PM -0600, Bruce Albrecht wrote:
Greg Newby writes:
On Wed, Mar 01, 2006 at 09:57:11AM -0600, Bruce Albrecht wrote:
... How many PD books have you found in Google Book Search that were not visible? Did you report them to Google? If not, some of the blame falls on _your_ shoulders.
How is such notification done?
Well, when I've been doing book searches at Google, and it comes up with a book that doesn't say that it was provided by a publisher, and the book information claims it was copyrighted before 1923, or I can find the copyright in a snippet, I use Google's feeback link to report that the book is incorrectly flagged as being in copyright so that they will fix the status. In one case, they fixed it after a 4-5 email exchange. In other cases, they simply told me that they were aware that some books were incorrectly identified as in copyright.
Do they consider 1923 as a cutoff date (per US law)? Or do they look to 1868 or something similar as a cutoff, as an attempt to only say "public domain" if it's defensibly for the entire world? -- Greg
Greg Newby writes:
On Wed, Mar 01, 2006 at 08:23:47PM -0600, Bruce Albrecht wrote:
Greg Newby writes:
On Wed, Mar 01, 2006 at 09:57:11AM -0600, Bruce Albrecht wrote:
... How many PD books have you found in Google Book Search that were not visible? Did you report them to Google? If not, some of the blame falls on _your_ shoulders.
How is such notification done?
Well, when I've been doing book searches at Google, and it comes up with a book that doesn't say that it was provided by a publisher, and the book information claims it was copyrighted before 1923, or I can find the copyright in a snippet, I use Google's feeback link to report that the book is incorrectly flagged as being in copyright so that they will fix the status. In one case, they fixed it after a 4-5 email exchange. In other cases, they simply told me that they were aware that some books were incorrectly identified as in copyright.
Do they consider 1923 as a cutoff date (per US law)? Or do they look to 1868 or something similar as a cutoff, as an attempt to only say "public domain" if it's defensibly for the entire world?
I don't know about other countries, as I am in the US. This week, I tried to follow up on a book published in 1914 in England (but probably missing an explicit copyright), but it's hard to tell because Google doesn't display full sized title and title-verso page. The British Library didn't indicate any additional editions. Basically, Google's response this time was "We're not sure if it's in copyright so you're not going to see anything more than snippets."
On Wed, 1 Mar 2006, Greg Newby wrote:
On Wed, Mar 01, 2006 at 09:57:11AM -0600, Bruce Albrecht wrote:
... How many PD books have you found in Google Book Search that were not visible? Did you report them to Google? If not, some of the blame falls on _your_ shoulders.
How is such notification done?
To easily find some examples, look for Jane Austen's works, H.G. Wells, and other well-known long-dead authors.
Note that they seem to use a ridiculous date for "world wide" public domain...something in the 1800s, rather than a "US-Safe" cutoff of 1923.
I think they (Google) are creating ambiguity when there is none, at least in the US. -- Greg
They made a huge mistake doing too many copyrighted books with the original Google Print Library, now they are hard at work trying to reverse that public relations fiasco. i.e. going overboard in the other direction. mh
Bowerbird@aol.com wrote:
indeed, in the sense that they offer customers the option of a hard-copy printing of an e-text, i think they're providing a service.
Those people know they can take a PG text, format it, print a hardcopy and sell it. That's done in good faith. Nobody has any problem with that. They also know that formatting a text does not give them any copyright whatsoever. But still they stick a copyright notice on a public domain text. That's done in bad faith. They didn't even proof-read the text, or they would have noticed those errors.
we are failing in our mission by not ensuring that google has a no-pages-restricted entity in its book-search for each and every public-domain book that they have.
You are contradicting yourself. Google is a commercial enterprise just like those two-bit publishers. Why do you require ethical behaviour from Google and not from those other publishers? -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster@gutenberg.org
participants (7)
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Bowerbird＠aol.com -
Bruce Albrecht -
Dave Fawthrop -
Greg Newby -
Greg Weeks -
Marcello Perathoner -
Michael Hart