The Authors Guild Is Still Wrong About Google's Book Scanning

Google is taking books and digitising them. That within its own right isn't illegal. But Google then takes the digitised books and utilises that content for profit (every time you click buy, Google gets a cut of the sale) and what's more the court has withheld the author's ability to decide how they want their books to be advertised/presented.

I could scan in books, present content without context, and misrepresent what a book is trying to say. For example I could create a climate skeptic website that takes pro-climate change books and misquotes them into supporting me. But because of this "transformative change" from physical to digital, suddenly I am allowed to do that.

Every time Google quotes part of a book without context they're changing the meaning of that book. The author has lost their right to stop that from happening. Essentially Google has committed libel against authors by quoting them without context or permission.

Google doesn't use the books scanned for profit. If they sell a book is because they already have it in Google Books, is not one of the scanned

Your argument is largely based on the idea of using copyright to prevent mischariacterization of the work, and more broadly for the author to control perception of the contents of the work. My original comment (preserved below) pointed out that such arguments have little legal footing in the first place and wouldn't even work offline.

I presumed you did not know this, but now I wonder if you're arguing to remove existing standards for fair use. But if you're making that case I would have expected to see different arguments. Arguments founded on the utility to society w/r/t progressing the useful arts and sciences, or a new class of utility all together.

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>and what's more the court has withheld the author's ability to decide how they want their books to be advertised/presented.

Controlling the external perception of the contents of the work is not a purpose of copyright. There is even a well established realm of fair use covering criticism and comment. I don't intend to say that reproduction of excerpts for use in advertising (and google's implementation of it) are fair use. They very well may not be. However, a court will not be swayed by legal reasoning based on an author's ability to wield copyright to control public perception of the work.

>I could scan in books, present content without context, and misrepresent what a book is trying to say. For example I could create a climate skeptic website that takes pro-climate change books and misquotes them into supporting me. But because of this "transformative change" from physical to digital, suddenly I am allowed to do that.

No, this is again an established area of fair use that has nothing to do with digitization specifically. Someone could publish that hypothetical website as a book and argue fair use with the standards of "research and scholarship" fair use (and maybe "criticism and comment," depending on how the quotes were used).

>Every time Google quotes part of a book without context they're changing the meaning of that book. The author has lost their right to stop that from happening.

The author NEVER had the right to wield copyright on the basis of preventing mischaracterization of their work, even if is/was de facto ability.