Principles of Private Property - Google and the Courts

[AlbqOwl]

One of the reasons we need the most serious, competent, and Constitutional rights-minded justices on the Supreme Court is graphically illustrated in the Kelo vs New London case that strips private citizens of their property 'for the public good'. A similar case is underway in Florida and that too will probaby be headed for the Supreme Court.

So will the following case.

Do you think Google should be able to link you to anything out there? Even your own creative works that you had no intention of posting on the Internet?

It's not hard to appreciate a concept of a one-stop shopping center for all the world's knowledge. But at what cost to private property rights?

Search for property rights -- David Keene (The Hill)

Private property, real and intellectual, is under constant attack these days by folks who insist they represent the public good. . . .

. . . .Consider the ongoing battle between Google and the U.S. publishing industry over whether Google can, in the name of making searchable information available to the public, ignore copyright law and make an author’s work available through its search engine, regardless of the author’s wishes and without paying royalties for doing so.

The ability to “google” a subject makes research in today’s world easier than ever in the past, and many of us would be almost lost without being able to do so. As anyone with a computer knows, more information is available via this research route than one can imagine.

There is no doubt in my mind that if absolutely everything out there was fed into the Google data base so that we could search it for the information we seek, life would be even easier for us. It would also be good for Google’s search engine to move from convenience to indispensability.

To say that there would be a demand for such a comprehensive research engine is to understate the obvious, and the folks at Google are intent upon providing just that. They have decided to scan the complete contents of various libraries, and a number of libraries have worked with them to get this done. The problem is that, with the exception of books that are “out of copyright” and therefore in the public domain, the scheme involves taking the intellectual property of hundreds of authors with neither permission nor compensation … something that the authors who labored to create the works are understandably not all that happy about.

To be fair, Google says it won’t make entire copyrighted texts available or printable to Google users and argues that this limit makes what it is doing legal and should actually increase book sales to those who want the entire text. Many authors and publishers aren’t buying the argument; they are in court to stop the “taking” of their property by a private corporation that argues its right to do so on the basis of public and social good.

To them, the question is not whether the database Google wants to create will be useful to others but whether its potential usefulness justifies Google’s “taking” with neither permission nor compensation. Unless a compromise can be reached, this question will have to be addressed by the courts.

Given the nature of the decisions our courts are handing down these days, one would be foolish to bet on the outcome of this case. The United States takes the position internationally that intellectual-property rights are sacrosanct and deserve protection. Congress and the White House are, in fact, quick to confront nations that pirate our music, films and books.

Whether our courts will be as ready to protect these same private rights within our borders is another question. The success of the argument that the social benefits of ignoring an author’s right to control his own output supersedes the traditional right to intellectual property right protection remains to be seen.

Fortunately, the text of our Constitution is available through Google, so maybe the judges hearing the case will find it.

Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, is a managing associate with Carmen Group, a D.C.-based governmental-affairs firm (www.carmengrouplobbying.com).
http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Comment/DavidKeene/100405.html

 

[AlbqOwl]

Many of us questioned the ethics of the City of New London forcibly taking private property to give to a private developer with the excuse that it 'was for the public good'.

Now the question is expanded. Should Google be able to post the intellectual property of writers, poets, composers, etc., without their permission, in the interest of 'the public good'?

 

[DeeJayH]

This, like every advance in any field, is testing the boundaries
does it raise valid concerns? Absolutely!
and it will be interesting to see how this plays out
on some levels what google is trying makes sense
but considering how vigourously they are going after P2Ps/file sharing.....

 

[AlbqOwl]

Sure. A one-stop shopping center for any information you need about anything is very appealing. But it does enrich Google, and benefits the producers of the information little or not at all, and in fact could cut into their income they receive from royalty sales.

But will the courts rule in favor of protection of intellectual property? They haven't done a very good job of protecting our private real property lately.

 

[Schweddy]

But will the courts rule in favor of protection of intellectual property? They haven't done a very good job of protecting our private real property lately.

I agree and I sure hope they do rule in the favor of intellectual property. One of the concerns that I have as a website owner is what I have in the hidden directories. I might store a paper that I wrote for school for later use and if I forget to tell the web search engines explicitly NOT to search there - they will do so without my consent.

It should be looked at as private property unless I give authorization to specific places.