Google Agrees To Digitize Millions Of Books Online

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SHOULD THEY? To me this is some scary shit if Congress doesn't step in and put a stop to Google's monopolizing of public libraries.

The Justice Department has launched an investigation into whether Google is violating antitrust laws by reaching an agreement with authors and publishers to digitize millions of printed books and post the contents online. We speak to Brewster Kahle, founder of the non-profit internet library Archive.org. He’s among critics warning Google could end up with a monopoly of access to information and exclusive license to profit from millions of books.



Give a look listen or read this very important issue. Google Faces Antitrust Investigation for Agreement to Digitize Millions of Books Online

AMY GOODMAN: Do you see the end of libraries as we know them?


BREWSTER KAHLE: Libraries as a physical place to go, I think will continue. But if this trend continues, if we let Google make a monopoly here, then we’ll—what libraries are in terms of repositories of books, places that buy books, own them, be a guardian of them, will cease to exist. Libraries, going forward, may just be subscribers to a few monopoly corporations’ databases.


AMY GOODMAN: What about antitrust laws? Why wouldn’t they apply here? Google owning all the access to the books of the twentieth century that are out of print?


BREWSTER KAHLE: It’s horrendous, isn’t it? So, what about antitrust laws and all? I think what’s taking people by surprise is the way this is happening.


Usually these monopolies—and we’ve had to wrestle with in the tech world, seemingly every decade—AT&T and IBM, most recently Microsoft—usually they achieve it through some kind of market dominance. They go and, you know, play not fair. They go and do something and just deal with it in that way, and then the courts come in to try to take apart the monopoly.


But in this case, they’re actually using the courts to create the monopoly. So the idea of using a class-action settlement to make a court-sanctioned monopoly for Google and this bizarre other thing called the Books Rights Registry is really a new use of class-action law to go and use the courts to create a monopoly.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you see the end of libraries as we know them?


BREWSTER KAHLE: Libraries as a physical place to go, I think will continue. But if this trend continues, if we let Google make a monopoly here, then we’ll—what libraries are in terms of repositories of books, places that buy books, own them, be a guardian of them, will cease to exist. Libraries, going forward, may just be subscribers to a few monopoly corporations’ databases.


AMY GOODMAN: What about antitrust laws? Why wouldn’t they apply here? Google owning all the access to the books of the twentieth century that are out of print?


BREWSTER KAHLE: It’s horrendous, isn’t it? So, what about antitrust laws and all? I think what’s taking people by surprise is the way this is happening.


Usually these monopolies—and we’ve had to wrestle with in the tech world, seemingly every decade—AT&T and IBM, most recently Microsoft—usually they achieve it through some kind of market dominance. They go and, you know, play not fair. They go and do something and just deal with it in that way, and then the courts come in to try to take apart the monopoly.


But in this case, they’re actually using the courts to create the monopoly. So the idea of using a class-action settlement to make a court-sanctioned monopoly for Google and this bizarre other thing called the Books Rights Registry is really a new use of class-action law to go and use the courts to create a monopoly.


AMY GOODMAN: Do you see the end of libraries as we know them?


BREWSTER KAHLE: Libraries as a physical place to go, I think will continue. But if this trend continues, if we let Google make a monopoly here, then we’ll—what libraries are in terms of repositories of books, places that buy books, own them, be a guardian of them, will cease to exist. Libraries, going forward, may just be subscribers to a few monopoly corporations’ databases.


AMY GOODMAN: What about antitrust laws? Why wouldn’t they apply here? Google owning all the access to the books of the twentieth century that are out of print?


BREWSTER KAHLE: It’s horrendous, isn’t it? So, what about antitrust laws and all? I think what’s taking people by surprise is the way this is happening.


Usually these monopolies—and we’ve had to wrestle with in the tech world, seemingly every decade—AT&T and IBM, most recently Microsoft—usually they achieve it through some kind of market dominance. They go and, you know, play not fair. They go and do something and just deal with it in that way, and then the courts come in to try to take apart the monopoly.

But in this case, they’re actually using the courts to create the monopoly. So the idea of using a class-action settlement to make a court-sanctioned monopoly for Google and this bizarre other thing called the Books Rights Registry is really a new use of class-action law to go and use the courts to create a monopoly.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you see the end of the book?

BREWSTER KAHLE: The book, as we know it, which is printed and put between two covers, there will still be books. But in their primacy of how intellectual discourse happens, it’s going to move online, in very likely form, so really how long-form narratives have got to find a way online. And if we want to have a publishing system that’s a distributed publishing system that has lots of authors that get paid, then we don’t want to have single corporate control over the distribution of those works. Otherwise, what it is we’ve had for centuries as the book and the freedom of the press will become so restricted that it won’t look like what it is we grew up with.

Peace