But whatever Google uses to calculate BookPageRank, there will be many search results in the back pages no one ever looks at. And those will probably come from the majority of books out of print.

The books that are out of print are there for a reason. They don’t generate enough interest anymore.

That in turn means that the benefit for the searching public from including millions of obscure books no one knows or is interested in reading might be quite limited. Google might get not much of a return for most of the $750 million scanning operation.

(Mirrored on my blog, where I am writing quite a lot about the library case).

Couldn’t you ask the same or similar questions about almost any proposed “fair” use? Can you prove — ahead of time — that the use will in fact yield the social benefits that fair use proponents claim?

Sometimes, I think, the answer is yes; often the answer is no. Yet in the latter case the use may be noninfringing nonetheless (example: time-shifting in the Betamax case), because the court’s judgment is that the harm of erring on the side of the copyright owner is greater than the harm of erring on the side of the alleged infringer.

I should emphasize that, like Brett, I am framing a general point and not an argument about Google Book Search in particular. But I fail to see how the possibility that Google Book Search will be less effective than existing catalog services is an argument in favor of infringement and against fair use. I don’t know that “the market for existing catalog services” is the right baseline for assessing the legality of Google Book Search, but if it is, why isn’t competition from Google Book Search, on balance, a good thing?

Mike

You ask important questions that I don’t have very good answers for at this point. I don’t yet know how well the search function will work and the extent to which the results it will yield will be relevant and appropriate. My primary point was that the transaction cost analysis for fair use is overly narrow (generally and in the context of analyzing the Google Print case); with respect to the last sentence that you noted, I should probably emphasize the word “potential”.

Brett

I wonder about this:

“And bringing it back to Google Print, the search capability that Google Print brings the public has the potential to yield substantial spillovers to the public.”

Does it? What evidence do you have that this proposed search function will be done well, yield relevant and appropriate results, and benefit people more than the existing catolog services?

I think it’s important to ask what standards and principles Google will be using for this project. I have been asking it for months. No one seems willing to answer me.

Why does everyone assume that Google’s library project will actually work for people and benefit research?

Siva