I recently blogged about the new 19th Century Books app that the British Library have produced for the iPad. As I mentioned in that article, this is not only an excellent way to make these first editions available for the general public to enjoy, but it also has the potential to be an important tool in book history study. It seems that the British Library have grander ambitions with a commendable project planned, in partnership with Google, to digitise 250,000 books originally published between 1700 and 1870, and make them available on the internet for free.
In terms of basic facts, this seems like a terrific idea. Due to the time period of these books all issues of copyright are non-existent, so there is no legal impediment to making these available for free. It will be interesting to see whether the quality of the scans will match the exceptional standards of the iPad app, probably not, but it’s wrong to complain when it’s free. Much like the iPad app, which is going to be expanded later in the year, this is a real opportunity for the general public, as well as academics in the field of books or literature, to access these items without having to travel to London.
The interesting part of this is played by Google, who will be completing all of the book scans and paying all of the costs. All the British Library has to do is allow access to the books for the scanning to take place, so they can’t lose. From a personal perspective, this project leads to mixed feelings towards Google. On the one hand this sounds like a terrific project to make historical works available for free access, while on the other hand Google have previously tried to take actions that could have damaged publishing beyond repair.
I won’t go into too much detail, and can only offer my interpetation of the complex legal arguments surrounding Google's controversial plans for digital books. The basic idea was that Google wanted to take the principle behind this British Library project and apply it to writing that is still in copyright. The idea that Google would have the right to distribute books without explicitly owning the rights seems barmy, but they weren’t far from making it happen. In fact, before the courts in the US halted Google’s book publishing project they offered them the opportunity to change their terms; allow authors to ‘opt-in’, rather than be forced to ‘opt-out’. The fact that Google declined this offer confirmed some opinions amongst authors and publishers that Google’s interests were their own, not in authors being paid a fair share for distribution of their work.
No doubt the Google Books court cases will continue in the future, but as it stands they can’t publish in-copyright works without a formal agreement with the rights holders; as it should be. Are Google’s aims purely philanthropic, a simple desire to share books with the world? Or was the recent court battle over copyrighted works really an attempt to seize control of the book market, pulling the rug from under the feet of authors, publishers and commercial rivals such as Amazon? The British Library project is undoubtedly a generous act, but I would suggest that we don’t drop our guard. Google are one of, if not the most powerful company in the world, so we should accept gifts but keep our guard up, so we don’t accept a Trojan horse.
Until next time,
Thomas
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