Silicon Insider: Google's Library Dilemma

Oct. 20, 2005 — -- If you were a writer, would you rather be read than paid?

That's a loaded question, and probably exactly the wrong one to ask; nevertheless, it lies at the heart of the whole Google Print debate.

This is one of those technology subjects where I not only must admit to a conflict of interest, but almost an unequaled one. I'm so down and dirty on this one that I can hardly see the clear, blue sky. But, interestingly, this very conflict is so neatly balanced on both sides of the argument that I find myself uncharacteristically ambivalent on the case.

Here's the story: Earlier this year, Google finally made public its Library Project, a program already under way to digitize the millions of books in some of the world's greatest libraries -- including those at Harvard, Michigan, Stanford, the New York Public Library and the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. This Library Project, the company announced, was to be the cornerstone of an even bigger Google service that we now know as Google Print. Completing the package is the Publisher Program, which enables newly-published (and thus copyrighted) works to be added to this database, upon permission of the publisher or author.

In keeping with its wildly successful search policy, Google promised not to make any money off referrals from booksellers, not to display ads on pages referencing its Library Project books, and to only display ads on Publishing Program book pages with the permission of the copyright holder (who would receive the majority of that revenue).

Bringing Books to the Masses

This all sounded pretty good on first glance. After all, aside from other search engine companies, who would be smacking themselves in the head for not thinking of this first? Who could possibly complain about having every book in the world not only online, but instantly searchable? Imagine the boon to academic and student researchers, to historians, to schoolchildren and the self-educated in the poorest parts of the world. Imagine the billions of people in the world who are currently lucky to get their hands on any textbook, now suddenly able to tap into millions of texts -- all with a click of a few keys down at the local Internet café or even on their cell phones.

Imagine what a boost that would be for human invention! Suddenly allowing a billion imaginations to blossom: What Einsteins or Bacons or Mozarts or Giottos are out there waiting only for their chance to change the world? At a time when the challenges facing humanity seem to be growing exponentially in both number and magnitude, doubling or tripling our available intellectual capital seems like a darn good idea.

If only it were that easy. As I've noted before, I have been peripherally involved with the Google Library Project from the beginning, particularly with the Bodleian Library, as a result of my annual event at Oxford each autumn. Because of that, earlier this year I found myself in a meeting room in Palo Alto discussing "the Library of the Future" with a bunch of Silicon Valley veterans, venture capitalists, attorneys and even one of Google's founders. It was there, in the midst of praise for the project and its implications, that I first heard the murmurs of dissent. They came, to my surprise, from the attorneys present. "I think it's a great idea," I remember one of them saying, "but the copyright battle is going to be a nightmare."

It was a glimpse of things to come. As you have no doubt read over the last few months, the very idea of digitizing the world's books has been attacked by, in turn, the libraries that weren't part of the consortium, the French (who, of course, assumed it was another attempt by the Anglosphere to hijack the Zeitgeist), copyright attorneys and, most recently, the Authors Guild, which called Google a "massive copyright infringer" and filed charges against the company.

Convincing Authors to Give Up Control

In the best analyses of all of this to date, Tim Wu at Slate argues that what is really going on here -- especially between the Authors Guild and Google -- is a culture war. One side (which he labels the "Silicon Valley" culture) promotes the value of authorial exposure -- that is, the more eyeballs you capture, the more impact you have, and the more power that you can translate to influence, fame or wealth. Needless to say, the roots of this viewpoint can be found in the Internet.

The other side (which Wu calls the "Hollywood" culture) argues for authorial control. That is, you created it, so you own it and you get to decide who uses it and for how much. If you understand anything about the lives of screenwriters, or about the cutthroat world of Hollywood, you know exactly where this philosophy -- demand immediate compensation for any use of your idea, otherwise it will get stolen and make somebody else rich -- came from.

Then, having made his point brilliantly, Wu begins to undermine it by arguing that it is based on a false premise: that, in fact, Google Print is not really what its detractors think it is; but is in fact a rather benign new service. His argument is correct on its face. In truth, Google Print is a kind of search engine -- that is, it enables you to find a particular item of information by racing through a vast database of stored data, in this case books and other publications. But unlike traditional Google, which takes you to the complete Web page, Google Print only tells you where that item can be found. You then have to go obtain the publication from Amazon or Barnes & Noble or wherever.

Fine, but in this Wu is being far more technologically shortsighted than the Authors Guild. The simple fact is that in order to make Google Print a viable service, Google needs to not only digitize complete books and store them in massive databases, but it also must capture sizable fraction of all of the books in the world. And once it's got them, the Authors Guild and copyright lawyers understand, it's going to be very hard to stop Google from using this material any way it wants.

Not surprisingly, this has made a lot of people jumpy, notably authors and publishers. And that forced Eric Schmidt, the chief executive officer of Google, to take the extraordinary step of authoring a bylined defense of Google Print in The Wall Street Journal this week. In it, Schmidt argued (like Wu) that critics misunderstand the real purpose of Google Print. In particular, Schmidt pointed out that the true goal of Google Print is to help people find books, not steal them. He noted that only books in the public domain will be fully text-accessible (hence the Library Project), and that, ultimately, complaints of copyright violation are absurd, as Google's work is no more in violation of "fair use" laws than are you and I quoting from a book in a term paper.

In other words, Google is saying: Trust us on this one, because our goals are ultimately altruistic. Sure, this service will make us more competitive to folks like Yahoo! and Microsoft, but in return we are going to provide an extraordinary new service to the world. As for authors and publishers, if they would just put down their paranoia and give this thing a chance, they'll be better off as well.

Well, maybe.

Is it Altruism or Capitalism?

So, why am I ambivalent about all this? Well, on the one hand, I'm a Silicon Valleyite and (ahem) a Distinguished Friend of Oxford University. I've known and respected Schmidt for many years, and have a great admiration for the altruism of Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google's two founders. I cheered as the Bodleian/Google agreement was put together, because I knew it would not only financially benefit one of the world's greatest libraries, but it would also bring to the world all of that accumulated wisdom of mankind's past now hidden in dusty stacks.

But I'm also the author or co-author of a dozen books, and the little professional writer's voice in me screams: "Don't give up ownership of your work!" Sure, some of them I'd be happy to put online -- like my best-written book, which made so little money I would have been better off working at McDonald's, or my first book, an acknowledged "classic" that has been out of print for 15 years. If Google wants those babies, they can have them, with my eternal gratitude.

On the other hand, what about that business best-seller that sold nearly 100,000 copies and is still earning me royalty checks? Am I ready to give that one up, based only upon Google's assurances that I will still own it? That's a tough one. Companies change their policies, after all, especially when times are tough. Will Google still be dedicated to helping mankind after its first bad quarter? And what if I someday write one of those evergreen textbooks -- like the legendary Addison-Wesley college Calculus book -- that sells thousands of units every year for decades? Would I really let Google get its hands on it?

In the end, as with most new things tech, time will answer all of our questions. Wu's culture war may prove to be only a skirmish, followed by a quick truce. If Google Print really does drive more readers to purchase books, which I suspect it will, then authors will happily allow Google to digitize their books -- and, frankly, they won't have much choice, because publishers, always happy for a new revenue source, will write it into their contracts. And, if, as the more paranoid critics believe, Google Print is a Trojan Horse to capture control of the world's last great repository of searchable data and then sell it as complete texts -- well, that's when you haul out the lawyers (and the Supreme Court). On the other hand, if at the same time, Google figures out a way to pay authors royalties on those sales ... well, rather than a threat to us writers, this actually represents a boon, the first real challenge to the centuries-long stranglehold of paper on authorship.

So is it worth the risk? Oh, yes. And to appreciate why, we have to look beyond the interests of individual authors or large public corporations to those billions of people struggling desperately to enter the modern world. The Internet is their best, and perhaps last, chance to get there. If only for selfish reasons, I'll happily swap a few of my dreams to give them theirs.

This work is the opinion of the columnist and in no way reflects the opinion of ABC News.

Michael S. Malone, once called "the Boswell of Silicon Valley," most recently was editor at large of Forbes ASAP magazine. He has covered Silicon Valley and high-tech for more than 20 years, beginning with the San Jose Mercury-News as the nation's first daily high-tech reporter. His articles and editorials have appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and Fortune, and for two years he was a columnist for The New York Times. He has hosted two national PBS shows: "Malone," a half-hour interview program that ran for nine years; and a 16-part interview series in 2001 called "Betting It All: The Entrepreneurs." Malone is best known as the author of a dozen books: his latest, a collection of his best newspaper and magazine writings, is called "The Valley of Heart's Delight" (Wiley).