October 23, 2003
Unfair Use? Amazon's Free Book Giveaway
by Brian DearAmazon.com launched a new service today, called Search Inside the Book. In a word: fantastic. For someone like me who's spent years doing research for a nonfiction history book, it's an incredible tool. This is the best thing on the web since Google unleashed a fully searchable Usenet archive dating back to 1982.
However, I am doubtful the service -- as it exists today -- will last long. It is too good..
Why is it too good? Because if you're determined, you can copy entire chapters out of books --- or, if you are really determined, entire books.
Here's how.
Case Study: Copying A Book From Amazon -- For Free.
I happen to be writing a book on the history and significance of the PLATO computer system. It has required a huge, time-consuming amount of research --- interviews, oral histories, emails, Google searching, archival documents, video and audio recordings, screen grabs, photos, travel around the country, you name it.
Along comes Amazon's new service. So I gave it a try. I typed in "plato computer" in the search field of Amazon's main Books page. This resulted in a long list of search results. Most of them contained individual results of their own --- full text results from inside the respective books.
So I selected a book, Case Studies in Computer Aided Learning, edited by C. Dianne Martin. Turns out Chapter Two, entitled PLATO Mathematics: The Teacher and Fourth Grade Students Respond, is, shall I say, a target-rich environment. So rich, that for all intents and purposes, the word "PLATO" appears on every page of the chapter.
Awesome. Page 53. Page 54. Page 55. Page 56. Hmm. I sensed a pattern.
Oooh. Then I noticed this at the bottom of the results:
Seven pages of links. Why, it's a huge chunk of the book.
So I clicked on a link, and saw this:
First thing I noticed was, of course, the green boxes. While it is impressive that Amazon was able to highlight -- no doubt in realtime? -- the actual search keyword hits on the actual pages of the book, I immediately wondered why they didn't use a half-oblique green shading instead of a solid box. That way you could see the text "behind" the box. Kind of like how Google highlights its search terms in the results pages (when you view Google's cache of a particular search result). But I'm not going to complain. This was awesome --- an actual page right out of the book!
But wait! There's more! Lots, lots more. Notice the "Previous Page" and "Next Page" links. Amazon lets you see two previous and two subsequent pages relative to the page you're on. Suddenly you're able to see five full-page scans out of a book you don't own. Didn't take long for the lightbulb to go off.
Think about it: copy all these scanned pages, return to the search results, grab more images, and after a while you have dozens, maybe scores, of pages out of a copyrighted book you don't own.
With my Safari browser on my Mac, I can just position the cursor of the mouse somewhere over the scanned image of the book's page, click the right mouse button (I use a 2-button mouse on my Mac), select the "Download Image to Disk" menu item, and bingo, the copyrighted page is saved to disk. Go to next page, repeat. Next page, repeat. Run out of pages, go back to search results. Select next unseen page, repeat the process and keep moving forward, slurping down as much of the book as you want.
Once you exhaust the search results for a book, just go to the last page you were able to grab, look for some interesting phrase or keywords, and search for that using the "Search inside this book" option. Amazon freshens your results and you're able to scoop up more of the book.
Unsettling Questions.
How in the world is this beneficial to publishers, let alone authors? What incents me to buy this book? Since I have essentially the entire text of the book at my fingertips for free, I don't see any reason to buy the book. Certainly not a $37.95 book that's on special order (read: prolly long out of print). But even more certainly the latest, hottest novel.
I don't know. All I know is that in this one case study, I am able to access huge chunks, if not all, of a $37.95 special-order book that until today would require my a) buying, or at least, b) going to the library and xeroxing. Both involve money. Not anymore. Now, thanks to Amazon's "Search Inside the Book," people have a way of getting portions or entire books saved to their personal computer's hard drive for later use -- either personal use or . . . gasp . . . republishing a la a sinister version of Brewster's Bookmobile. . .
How could this kind of feature possibly qualify as fair use of a copyrighted work? Amazon does not seem to place any burderns or restrictions in the way that would prevent such unfair use --- for that is surely what this is.
At the bottom of the scanned pages, note Amazon's disclaimer: "This copyrighted material is viewable by permission of the publisher." Now, did the publisher grant permission after collecting a fee from Amazon? Or is Amazon going to pay the publisher a fee based on actual viewings of these pages? Who pays Amazon?
How can it be a sustainable, profitable business for Amazon? If indeed there are any fees behind-the-scenes right now, the money would be coming from Amazon itself. The customer -- at least currently -- does not pay a fee for the privilege of viewing (or worse: saving to disk) these full-scan search result images. I paid no fee to use this service. (Or did I?)
I did, however, have to sign in, I noticed. So Amazon knows it's me doing these searches. Theoretically Amazon is collecting every page I view. Will I get a bill some day? Can they do that? It sure seems like this is not a completely-thought-out product. Released prematurely due to its insanely-greatness? Don't know.
I'm going to continue to explore this new service from Amazon and I'll follow up with more observations and questions. In the meantime, I welcome your constructive comments.
UPDATE: 6:30pm PT, 23 Oct 2003:
I noticed Amazon has provided a FAQ page for more information about the "Search Inside the Book" service. The one that is most interesting to me is this:
What exactly would be a negative experience for the "copyright holder"? Exactly what is going to happen to users who view too many pages out of a single book, through this service? And what would constitute too many pages? Amazon goes on in the FAQ to say: "We require credit card information for security purposes only. We will not charge your credit card account any fees for using the Search Inside the Book feature." Hmmmmmmm.
UPDATE: 3 Nov 2003:
See my next Nettle blog entry for an update on the Amazon search-inside-the-book service.
October 07, 2003
Eolas Straw
You've probably heard of that notorious company Eolas, who have been going around claiming this and that patent for basic obvious software techniques. I noticed on the company's website that their about us page mentions this little tidbit:
A final note: Eolas also 'invented' (designed, actually) the now-ubiquitous stylized "e" logo. IBM purchased rights to use it from us in 1997.
Guess what. The early form of NETTLE had that "e" logo in 1996. And not just the "e", but the "n", the "t", and the "l". That logo was the first thing I thought of when I registered the domain. I used Paint Shop Pro to create it. When the NETTLE site first went live in 1997, it went live with that logo. So I guess I ought to sue Eolas for, hmm, how about 500 million dollars?
(While we're on the subject, I developed software starting in 1987 that did what EOLAS claims they invented in 1994. By 1993 my company's software had evolved to support MIDI, Adobe Acrobat's PDF viewing, zooming of images, etc. Where was EOLAS then? While we're at it, my same company developed an online auction service for a client, and we shipped it in 1992. In 1992, where was the company that successfully sued eBay recently, for their 1994 auction software invention?)
October 03, 2003
Nettle vs ACLU, Part 2
| This is part two of an ongoing Nettle series on the ACLU. Here's a link to Part One. |
If you recall, Part One of this story ended with a reply from Nadine Strossen, the president of the ACLU, letting me know that she'd delegated my concerns to her very capable staff. Fine. So I waited to hear from her capable staff. This week, I finally did.
But first, I got more junk mail, this time another complete set of junk from the Sierra Club. While I know the ACLU doesn't believe the Sierra Club got my name and address from them, I am satisfied (based on the investigation I undertook, contacting a number of nonprofits who confirmed they got my info from ACLU) that indeed that's precisely what happened. But there's no point wasting time over that; we'll just have to agree to disagree. So how do deal with Sierra Club junk mail? There are number of ways. Here's one.
1. One Way of Dealing With Sierra Club Junk Mail
I was disappointed to see another envelope from the Sierra Club, complete with a typeface on the front of the envelope making it look like it was handwritten. I opened the envelope. Inside was a cover letter, a flyer about near-extinct species (which made me think, "Once you annoy a potential contributor, they're lost forever..."), an ad for some outdoor hiking gear, two stickers, a membership card, two petitions I was supposed to sign, and a bunch more items. I must confess I didn't read any of it. |
Imagine how much money Sierra Club would save if they didn't cut down so many trees to send out such huge volumes of unwanted junk mail to people who in good faith joined the ACLU not realizing doing so meant they'd be bombarded with solicitations from all these other nonprofits? |
Oops. Big mistake. They sent a Business Reply Mail letter with the postage already paid. Now, what should be done about that. Let's see. Huh? Who me? What evil grin? |
First, pile all the junk mail together. Ah, but notice they've made the return envelope slightly smaller than the junk that was sent. |
Not a problem. Scissors to the rescue! |
Trim off edges so all the stuff will fit in the return envelope. |
Jam it all in there. Loud organ music and mutters of "muu-ha-ha-ha" optional. |
Ah, now doesn't that feel better? Some day next week, some poor schlepper at the Sierra Club will be scratching their head. Note the simulated handwritten plea at the upper left. My reply: "If you stopped sending out unwanted junk mail you would save even more much-needed funds." |
2. The ACLU Responds
As I said, I got a reply from Nadine's capable staff. Specifically, a reply from Anthony Romero. Here it is:
|
Subject: FW: Responding to your ACLU membership renewal letter Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 11:13:45 -0400 From: "Anthony Romero" <xxxxxxx@xxxx.xxx> To: <xxxxxxxx@xxxx.xxx> Cc: "Nadine Strossen" <xxxxxx@xxxx.xxx>, "Gina Schmeling" <xxxxxx@xxxx.xxx>, "Geraldine Engel" <xxxxxx@xxxx.xxx> Dear Brian, I am glad Nadine copied me on her message to you. Thank you for taking the time to inform us of your concerns. You can be sure that we take the privacy of our members very seriously, and I appreciate your suggestions for improvement. To be clear, we do not "immediately" share your name with anyone. If you received the junk mail you describe before you received an acknowledgement from us then it could not have been a result of our sharing your information with others. Nonetheless, we have placed your name on a "do not share list" and will be considering your suggestions and others as we move forward in our attempts to improve our membership and internet services. I do hope that we will soon be able to count you once again among our membership. We need your help now more than ever. Again, thank you for writing. Sincerely, Anthony |
Note how Romero says your suggestions for improvement. These aren't suggestions. This is common sense. I shouldn't need to even point out a problem such as this to an organization as knowledgable about privacy issues and concerned for the privacy of Americans. This is simple, basic good "netizenship", for lack of a better term. Like I've said before, if there's any organization that should be a model for practicing what it preaches, it's the ACLU!
Of course, I had to write back, to educate Mr. Romero further and make sure he and the very capable staff of the ACLU fully understands that a) they're wrong in this instance, and b) they can't blow me off that easily and expect me not to do anything about it. Besides, don't they want me back as a member?
But first, I had to check something out at the Sierra Club.
3. Some Kudos to the Sierra Club
See, it's not all bad news. I wanted to point out some really good things the Sierra Club does, that the ACLU does not. Dear ACLU staff, if you are reading this, please pay attention.
I went to the Sierra Club website, and followed the buttons and links to the page which allowed me to sign up online. Here's the full-length page as it appeared in my browser (apologies for the size of this image):
What I would like to call to your attention is a portion of the form about 1/3 of the way down the page:
Now what do we have here. Hmm. It looks to be pretty much exactly what the ACLU needs to do to fix their own online signup form once and for all.
Okay, so the user has to intentionally opt-out of the information-sharing by clicking the checkbox, and select the "No" radio button to indicate they don't want any correspondence by email, but at least the Sierra Club was good enough to let its potential new members decide these things for themselves.
Go look at the ACLU's signup form again. Note how the American Civil Liberties Union does not extend the same courtesy to its own potential new members. This is the crux of the problem. This is something the ACLU really needs to fix.
Some other Sierra Club observations, while I'm on the subject: the Sierra Club's signup form has no link to a privacy policy. That's an easily-correctible mistake. Also, the Sierra Club deserves another set of kudos for actually having a special page, linked to from their privacy policy, explaining opt-out in more detail.
4. Replying to Anthony Romero of the ACLU
|
From: Brian Dear <xxxxxx@xxxx.xxx> Mr. Romero, Thanks for writing back. Let's cut right to the chase. The ACLU's online signup form does not give potential new members the ability to opt-out of having their personal contact information shared with unknown parties. I have pointed this out to your organization, so it now knows about it, in case it was not aware of it before. This is a highly deceptive practice, perhaps one quite inadvertent on the ACLU's part, but nonetheless one not at all in keeping with the organization's fine principles. If I come to the ACLU's website and decide to join the organization and show my support by sending you money, I should be able to do so knowing that I'm only sharing my information with the ACLU and not unknown parties --- if that is my wish. At the very least, the ACLU should provide a mechanism, for example, a checkbox, enabling potential new members to opt-out of such information-sharing activity if they so choose. Allow me to provide you with an example. I invite you to go look at the Sierra Club's online signup form. Here's a direct link: https://ww2.sierraclub.org/membership/ Scroll down just a bit and note how they offer two opt-outs right in the form itself. First, they ask, "May we correspond with you via e-mail?" and give the user the choice of "Yes" or "No." Then they ask, "From time to time, we make our mailing list available to other worthy organizations. If you prefer that your name not be included, please check here," followed by a checkbox. I couldn't have said it better myself. The ACLU needs to do precisely this kind of thing to earn the trust of its new members. By not doing so, what kind of message does that send? "Do as I say, but not as I do?" That doesn't sound like the ACLU. I am confident that after you consider this matter carefully and take a moment to look at how other worthy nonprofit organizations deal with this issue, you'll agree with me that a change to your online signup form is the good and right thing to do. And, as I've indicated previously, as soon as I see such changes on the form, I will gladly renew my ACLU membership and send you not $20, but $50. I am certain this will inspire many others to do the same. You know, I miss not having a valid ACLU membership card in my wallet. I really look forward to being a member again. The ball's in your court. Sincerely,
Brian Dear |
I'll post an update as soon as I've heard back from the ACLU.
As always, I welcome your thoughtful comments below.
UPDATE -- 1 December 2003:
See Part Three of this ACLU story for some great news!!!