[348] in Privacy_Forum
[ PRIVACY Forum ] YouTube and Google Book Search: Pain, Delight,
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (privacy@vortex.com)
Mon Apr 28 21:28:27 2008
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Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:59:42 -0700
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YouTube and Google Book Search: Pain, Delight, and Copyright
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000382.html
Greetings. Much has been written regarding the legal aspects of
copyright in the Internet age, but far less about the visceral
conflicts that many of us feel about these issues in the real world
of our daily Net use. I'm going to skip the former to concentrate
on the latter in this missive.
Google, with their vast scale and immense technical competence, is
in the bulls-eye of many copyright debates, and represents a useful
case study in this regard, as many persons' reactions to Google
services can be at least as much emotional as logical.
Not that there's anything at all wrong with emotion. But it can add
a complicating dimension to any analysis (just ask Mr. Spock).
There's no getting away from it though, particularly in regards to
Google Book Search and Google's YouTube services.
Though it may not be obvious at first glance, Book Search and
YouTube may be reasonably viewed as being at opposite ends of the
"copyright emotion" spectrum, bringing users a heady mix of both
delight and pain. We begin with ...
Google Book Search
------------------
-- Delight! --
During my years at UCLA decades ago, I used to love wandering the
many libraries' stacks (silent except for the constant and relaxing
purr of ventilators) while pulling books essentially at random to
explore. Old, new, it didn't matter -- topic was of only secondary
importance and I picked up a fair bit of random information that
way, including much that's been of surprising usefulness over the
years.
Google Book Search presents a similar -- and more accessible --
opportunity for that same sort of exploration, and will become ever
more powerful in this regard as time goes by and additional books
continue to be added to their scanned collection.
You can spend endless hours if you wish, freely exploring the vast
virtual libraries on Book Search, in many cases even downloading
full PDFs of books to portable devices. It's a true joy, though for
all its glory it can be but a glimpse through a tiny keyhole at a
future of global access to mankind's stored knowledge, that's
impossible to really picture from this vantage point in time.
And yet ...
-- The Pain --
Book Search also is painful to use from an emotional standpoint.
Painful because typically (on works not in the public domain) only
partial text results are available, or perhaps only very brief
snippets -- both in keeping with Google's interpretation of their
rights and restrictions under copyright law (and a matter of
continuing controversy).
The inability to see full text whenever you want to is frustrating.
It's irritating. It's painful. You want to see it all and
you want to see it *now*. At such moments, if you could find a
no-charge "Ignore copyright and proceed to full text" button to
click, you'd likely be there as fast as you could move the mouse,
even though you'd know deep down it really would be the wrong thing
to do.
I assert that even the most ardent supporter of copyright status-quo
probably feels these conflicting emotions when faced with Book
Search snippets and partial texts. The urge for instant
gratification is very strong, especially when dealing with materials
that may still be under copyright but out of mainstream availability
for many years -- so-called "orphaned" works that have been buried
out of sight and out of mind, but often still with glories of their
own to reveal.
YouTube
-------
-- Delight! --
Even arguably more so than with Google Book Search, YouTube, over
the very short span of its existence to date, has become a powerful
mirror of humanity and society -- of a scope that is almost
impossible to grasp. I sometimes toy around trying to calculate how
much disk space Google might now devote to YouTube videos and
associated processing. I wouldn't publicly dare to even hazard a
guess. "Really Big" is as far as I'll go except in private.
But apart from sheer scale, the breadth of YouTube's offerings are
nothing short of unimaginably astounding, especially with some
thoughtful searches. I often say that virtually everything you can
imagine, and then some, is on YouTube. From the most sublime to the
sordid indeed, events new and memories old. Amateur, professional,
originals, covers and knockoffs -- every possible combination from
all manner of humanity young, old and in-between. Whether a
Hollywood-scope presentation, a crude video of someone spinning an
ancient 45rpm record from beginning to end, or even an old commercial
that now is genuine memorabilia, it's all there under the YouTube
umbrella.
I've seen persons who had absolutely no interest in the Internet
watch in fascination when shown how they could find old clips of
their favorite performers from many years ago. Lost cartoons from
our youths, TV and movie outtakes we've never seen before, so many
memories recent or cobweb-laden, all suddenly resurrected by the
vast armies of YouTube uploaders. A true wonder of the world.
And yet ...
-- The Pain --
While watching so many of these video wonders that can bring such
joy, or even contemplating downloading them for permanent reference,
it's hard not to frequently feel painful pangs of ... well ...
guilt. We may immensely enjoy what we see, but it's hard to banish
from the back of your mind the realization that so many of these
materials -- probably most in the case of old mainstream
entertainment-oriented videos -- shouldn't really be there at all.
That many of those goodies are still under copyright is obvious, as
is the copyright holder in lots of cases.
Such items are available on YouTube at all due the confluence of
the immense volumes of videos being uploaded to the service daily,
and the lack of materials being routinely prescreened before becoming
available on YouTube itself. Copyright holders cannot possibly keep
track of such vast numbers of submissions even if they wanted to,
and automated content "fingerprinting" technologies are likely to be
applied mainly to more "high profile" content at least for the time
being -- and their long-run effectiveness is not yet entirely clear.
Nor would it be practical for Google to have human beings trying to
prescreen all materials, even if the criteria for accepting or
rejecting a given item were always obvious (which is certainly not the
case). The DMCA, for all its many faults, does accept the accurate,
fundamental premise that it's generally impractical for service
providers to prescreen submitted materials in a high-volume Internet
environment.
But here's the part that's the most painful. We don't really *want*
those "offending" items to vanish from YouTube. When you find a
marvelous old clip that someone uploaded, and even if it's clear
that it's almost certainly a copyrighted item uploaded without
permission, is our reaction to report the uploader? Or is it to
enjoy the clip, murmur a silent thank you to the uploading party,
and perhaps check out their YouTube profile to see what other
fun items they may have in waiting for us to view? If we're honest
with ourselves I dare say that the natural response is the latter
one -- I know it is for me.
Like the classic film sequence of an angel and daemon arguing as
someone tries to make up their mind about an ethical dilemma (think
of the late night football field scene from "Animal House" ...) part
of us says, "You know, that video shouldn't be there." But another
piece of our mind is saying, "Wow! That's great! Give me more!"
The Dilemma
-----------
When it comes to copyrighted materials, Google Book Search whets our
appetites with excerpts and snippets, but emotionally we want to see
immediately what copyright law prevents us from seeing -- the whole
kit and caboodle.
YouTube does something of the opposite with even stronger emotional
impact. We can see (and hear) practically anything, however the
honest observer knows that much of what's there are likely or obvious
copyright violations. But the thought of losing access to such
wonderful stuff, especially those orphaned works that bring back
memories from long ago, is a conflicting force that urges us all to
"leave well enough alone." Nod nod, wink wink. Back to the vids.
This dilemma is a direct result of the fundamental changes taking
place in the very nature of information, mostly driven by the
Internet. Google is at the center of these issues today, but even
without a Google this path was inevitable. Google's success and
scale has moved these controversies onto the center stage more
rapidly than might have otherwise occurred, but Google itself is not
the "copyright problem," nor can they be expected to somehow wave a
magic wand and create a quick solution, especially given the
conflicted feelings we all possess about copyright vs. access to
information.
What's to do? Can technology help steer us toward any kind of
"meeting of the minds" that could help untangle the copyright knot
in an Internet world? I believe so, but not by itself, and I plan to
outline some specific ideas about this soon.
But until we're willing to admit that traditional concepts of
copyright are becoming increasingly diluted and in many cases even
meaningless in today's environment, progress is likely to be slower
than we'd like. One need not necessarily be enthusiastic about the
mutation (or death?) of traditional copyright, but not to accept it
as a truth is to bury one's head in the sand.
Google Book Search and YouTube are but two examples of the dilemma,
of the delight and pain surrounding copyright and all it has
represented for both good and ill over the years. No quick
solutions, but the times they are a-changin', and technology will
inevitably change copyright. You can bet your YouTube account on it.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com or lauren@pfir.org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
- Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
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