Google and Libraries

Ditto
To “ugh,” that is.

Quite apart from the concept that anything that weakens 100% total “property rights” is immoral, that essay sets up two straw men as alternate views of what a book is, thus enabling a conclusion that (a) overrules Constitutional copyright, (b) eliminates all fair use, (c) eliminates all first sale–basically, by making everything a contract.

Here’s a third alternative: A book (that is, the set of pages between covers, as opposed to the title itself) is–like a CD, or a DVD, or a videocassette–an object that is a copy of a creative work in fixed form. As such, it can be sold, and the buyer has a whole set of rights that are no different than they would be if the object was a wrench (or, better, a tool still covered by patent). Those rights include:

• Lending the object to someone else without additional compensation to the producer–I don’t pay Sears if I loan someone a wrench, and I don’t pay Terry Pratchett if I loan someone a copy of a Discworld novel.
• Giving the object to someone else without additional compensation to the producer (ditto).
• Reselling the object to someone else, who can then resell it again, also without additional compensation to the producer.
• Using the object as I see fit, destroying it if I desire, or even modifying it to suit my purposes.

Even taking the extremist view that copyright is no different from other property rights (a view that contradicts the Constitution and case law), libraries act ethically, morally, and legally in lending copies-of-stuff that they’ve purchased. Just as used book stores act ethically, morally, and legally in buying and selling items no longer needed by the original owners.

In fact, this clown’s argument gives books more protection than real property! After all, why shouldn’t Sears have the same residual rights in its patented fast-grip wrenches that he believes authors should have in copies of their books?

Neocon? His theory, applied to patents as well as copyrights, would wipe out eBay, all auction houses, used anything stores–and, of course, libraries. Requiring individual contracts for every transaction involving “intellectual property” is, well, I don’t have the right words. Or, rather, I do, but won’t use them on a family website.