Search defense

A while back Google was taken to court over its scanning books for the purposes of search and indexing. They raised a lot of quasi-interesting but mostly bad arguments regarding copyright and control and such. From a social standpoint I think it would be a tremendous boon to have all works collectively indexed and searchable. I think there's a "public-good" argument similar to "immanent domain" that one could make. I recently read an article on Slate that contains one of the best analogies I've come across:

The idea that there is no tradeoff between authorial control and exposure is attractive. But it is also wrong. Individually, more control may always seem appealing—who wouldn't want more control? But collectively, it can be a disaster. Consider what it would mean, by analogy, if map-makers needed the permission of landowners to create maps. As a property owner, your point would be clear: How can you put my property on your map without my permission? Map-makers, we might say, are clearly exploiting property owners, for profit, when they publish an atlas. And as an individual property owner, you might want more control over how your property appears on a map, and whether it appears at all, as well as the right to demand payment.

But the law would be stupid to give property owners that right. Imagine how terrible maps would be if you had to negotiate with every landowner in the United States to publish the Rand McNally Road Atlas. Maps might still exist, but they'd be expensive and incomplete. Property owners might think they'd individually benefit, but collectively they would lose out—a classic collective action problem. There just wouldn't really be maps in the sense we think of today.

The critical point is this: Just as maps do not compete with or replace property, neither do book searches replace books. Both are just tools for finding what is otherwise hard to find. And if we really want to have true, comprehensive book searches, we cannot require that every author's permission be individually sought out. The book search engines that emerge would be a shadow of the real thing, just as a negotiated map would be a lousy one. Studies suggest that millions of out-of-print books are of unclear copyright status, and Google estimates that relying solely on books provided by publishers and authors will yield only 20% of the books in existence. Not only might it be difficult to get permission. (At least with real property we know who the owners are.) But there are just too many books with owners who are hard or impossible to find"orphan works."

Each of those is a hole in the "map," and a shame.

But again, for every decision there's a good reason, and a real reason. Others have pointed out what I also think is the real reason: Dispite the high minded claims regarding author rights, copyrights, control, and intellectual property, publishers really just want a cut of the potential Ad-Sense revenue that Google will probably make. If it really comes down to a bare-knuckle legal-fight though, and if Google really wants to support the altruistic image that it purports, perhaps they can at some point come to an agreement not to connect advertisement to its book search, or perhaps to branch it off to a non-profit arm and promise to donate revenue above and beyond the project costs to libraries; I think the project is important enough to make happen dispite any greed factors.

The return to the console?

I've been seeing a slew of articles on Nintendo's new Wii game console coming out over at digg and a few other places. I never read articles on console games much because at some point I realized that I would probably never buy a console game again. I didn't see the point to it.

• They're dedicated single-purpose machines whereas my computer can play games and is useful for many other things.
• They become obsolete every few years.
• They're not THAT cheap.
• I haven't been much of a game enthusiast since I was a kid.

The last time I considered a console was for the PS2 and because I was kind of interested in the Dance Dance Revolution thingy. I read some excitement of its addictiveness and use in exercise and health. But it was an idle consideration. The PS2 and the Xbox both had some interesting games, and I'd gotten some modest pressure from friends I had who owned them but I never took the interest I had too seriously.

The last console I owned was the Atari 5200 (date me alert). Well, I did have a Sega but that was given to me and I didn't use it. That 5200 was a let down. I was excited when I got it but with all the saving I did at that age to get it, it didn't last long; it basically tanked as a console and had some other problems with it. My brother and sister had newer consoles over the years so at least I got to play with theirs.

Anyhow, coming back to they Wii... I finally decided to look it up and see what the hoopla was about. I'm simultaneously impressed and skeptical, and this mostly stems from the unique controllers that have accelerometers in them. It may indeed lend itself to some innovative game play and I find myself interested a little more seriously on getting one when it finally comes out. I guess I'll come back to it when the time comes.