Googel Biography
Source(google.com)Readers, I will be suspending this blog, and trying to set up anew with some other hosting service. The reason is Google's new privacy policy:
"When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones."
That is a whopper. I'm not comfortable publishing any work through a service that claims a "worldwide license to . . . reproduce, modify, create derivative works . . . publish, publicly perform, publicly display, and distribute such content." The last sentence does modify it a bit, true, but I think Google's lawyers could find away around language they wrote. In any event, even such "promotional" rights as translation are rights traditionally reserved to authors, to be alienated by choice, not by Google fiat.
As I've been saying in regard to piracy, it's not about potential financial losses, but my free-speech rights—my right to control when and where my words are published.
For the record, let me state here clearly that I do NOT grant Google any of these rights in anything I've published on this or any other blog prior to the publication of this new policy.
I will close with a link to a much better argument about copyright than any I've made here, by the great Caleb Crain:
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/01/caleb_crain_why_matt_yglesias_is_wrong_about_copyright.html
POSTED BY T.J. STILES AT 10:01 AM NO COMMENTS:
FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 2012
In Praise of Digitization (Really!)
I have gone on record as an opponent of piracy. I know, many of you argue that piracy doesn't actually hurt authors. In terms of sales, you may even be right. But it's the principle: My speech is mine, to publish as I choose. If you want to publish for free, it's very easy for you to do so. I'll defend your right to do it, and defend your right to say any damn thing you want. Give me the same courtesy.
But I do love the free flow of speech afforded by the new digital world. After all, as a nonfiction author, I consume information as well as provide it. So let me say a few things in favor of e-everything.
Google has done me a huge favor by digitizing and making available books that are no longer copyright-protected. The New York Times deserves great praise for making its archive searchable (though its search engine stinks). Private companies have helped us all with digitized newspapers and documents, in various Proquest or Readex databases, for example. Since this is all public-domain material, I would like to see the National Archives, Library of Congress, and public libraries compete with these firms, whose databases are available only to deep-pocketed research libraries and universities. But these companies are providing great products, I must admit.
And I like the fact that people are carrying their love of books into age of the handheld device, and that buying e-books is so easy. I don't retreat from my support for public libraries and independent bookstores in the face of predatory Internet booksellers, but I don't pretend that the situation's all bad. People are buying and reading books—that's good.
I do hope the codex—the traditional printed and bound book—survives, that it will be economically feasible to keep printing them. I find them useful, especially when reading for research, when I have three fingers holding three different places simultaneously. I find them beautiful, and love scanning the spines of my library. Most of all, I find them to be lasting. Operating systems change. Code gets rewritten. I don't know how much software I've bought over the years that is completely inaccessible now. I don't want some engineer in two or five or twenty years making some "improvement" that seals the door on my library.
POSTED BY T.J. STILES AT 10:56 AM NO COMMENTS:
LABELS: BIOGRAPHY, BOOKS, BOOKSELLING, COPYRIGHT, E-BOOKS, GOOGLE, INTERNET, INTERNET PIRACY, LIBRARIES, PIRACY, PUBLISHING, T.J. STILES
MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 2012
Parsing PIPA
I've noticed that the attacks on PIPA (I'm going to disregard SOPA, an inferior bill) have not referenced the actual content of the bill; they reference exaggerate claims made by hysterics. So here, my readers, is the bill itself. Read it and judge for yourself:
http://leahy.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/BillText-PROTECTIPAct.pdf
First, let me say that, were I given the power to write an anti-piracy law, I would focus on stopping the flow of money to piracy sites, not on taking down the sites entirely. But let's address the complaints about PIPA.
1) Complaint: It was written by congresspeople who don't understand the Internet.
Really? Senators and Representatives actually delegate the writing of bills to their staffs. Do you really think their staff members don't know anything about the Internet? In any event, point something out in this bill that reflects a lack of understanding of the Internet, and I will apologize for taking issue with this claim. I've given you the link: Find the section, quote it to me, and explain why it reflects a lack of understanding of the Internet.
2) Complaint: This bill was custom-written by the big movie industry so they can protect their profits.
In terms of wealth and power, the Internet industry has Hollywood beat. Would you rather own stock in Google or Paramount? Which is the bigger, more profitable, and more influential company? Why are one set of lobbyists and interests worse than the others? Do you really think there's no legitimate public interest in fighting piracy, just because piracy hurts Hollywood? In any event, this is simply a rumor. Even if it is true, point out the section of the bill that is objectionable because it was purportedly written by Hollywood. I gave you the link: Exactly which part is evil because of this supposed fact?
And, as I have said, this isn't just about the movie and music industry. They are the biggest players, in terms of money, but the interests of thousands of individual authors are in peril. Ignore us in your fight to protect piracy, and you are making Stalin's argument: To make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs. I, my friends, am the egg in this analogy.
3) Complaint: This bill would destroy innovation, and allow YouTube and Facebook to be taken down.
The bill specifically says that it applies to foreign sites "dedicated to infringing activity." On both points, YouTube and Facebook and the vast majority of sites on the Internet are safe. Nor does the bill include anything endangering individuals who post links, or even upload material. The bill says it imposes no new criminal penalties for copyright infringement. Individual uploaders would be as safe as they ever were.
4) Complaint: This bill would silence speech, and allow un-Constitutional prior restraint of speech.
If PIPA does this, then no law against piracy would stand scrutiny. But it's not true. By being aimed at foreign sites dedicated to infinging activity, the bill targets sites that are stealing other people's speech—that are actually doing harm to freedom of speech—not sites that provide original speech of their own. This is why the "prior restraint" claim is hogwash. You can't be guilty of restraint of speech, when the target isn't making any speech—just selling someone else's. In fact, the bill requires a hearing before a judge before any action can be taken, and specifically allows the target to fight any take-down in court.
Imagine if this protection were allowed to burglars and thieves of physical property. Imagine a truck being backed up to a bookstore, and thieves broke into the store and began hauling out books and software boxes, and putting them in the truck. The police would have to say, "OK, keep stealing while we find a judge and have a hearing. If you're still here when we get approval to stop this operation, then you'll have to give up the books, but we won't be able to arrest you."
Of course, what happens in the real world is, if police happened on the scene, they would arrest the thieves without a prior hearing. If police discovered a chop-shop or fencing operation, they would shut it down immediately, impound the property, and arrest the perps running it; only then would it go to court. I'm often told that the Internet has changed things. Yes: with the Internet economy so large a part of the overall economy, intellectual property should be treated as fully the equivalent of physical property, deserving of the same protection. PIPA actually provides less protection for intellectual property in digital form than existing law does for intellectual property in physical form.
5) Complaint: This bill would give moral support to the censorship efforts of China and other dictatorships, which block access to sites they find politically objectionable.
This is the silliest of all arguments against PIPA. Read PIPA. There is nothing in the bill allowing the blocking of sites because of their content. The act is specifically and clearly aimed at sites that are "dedicated" to stealing copyrighted material. The aim is to support the publication of material, by protecting copyright. Again, to use an analogy, this is like saying we can't criticize China for censoring the publication of certain books, because we have laws against the theft of physical books. Ridiculous.
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