Identifying Impacts Of Mass Digitization: A Case study of Google project

The access of electronic books by library users has increased among university students (Shelburne 2009). This circumstance encourages libraries to provide the digital collections. As the result, libraries digitized their book collections on a massive scale.Many libraries cooperate with commercial organizations in the digitizing book project, due to a lack of budget (Nielsen 2008). However, in the view of some experts, the project infringes the copyright law as these commercial partners use the digitizing books for commercial purpose. This essay will first describe the trend toward mass digitization and then identify problems due to effect of mass digitization on the right holders’ protection, particularly the copyright of orphan books. It the put forward arguments that government should protect the copyright holders of orphan books due to mass digitization.

On one hand, the digitizing books give advantages for libraries and its users. One of the advantages is that these books make accessing information easier. Digitized books have a compatibility with modern devices, such as smartphones and tablets. As the result, they can be accessed wherever and whenever by users. In addition, digitizing books have an added value, compared with printed books. The reason for this is that these books provide audio visual features, such as audio books, downloadable text and audio, electronic braille, so the disabled have an opportunity to access information (Myhill 2002). Furthermore, another benefit of digitizing books is to provide an opportunity for libraries to preserve information more economically and effectively. The digitizing books would need a less storage spaces as libraries deposit these books on the computer server. Compared with a conventional storage, computer servers might deposit millions of digitizing books in on square meter and this might prevent digitizing books from damage by insectsor natural disasters. This leads to reduction in the expenditure of book maintenance. Thus, most libraries digitize their printed book collections to improve accessibility to information in books and to preserve their collections.

On the other hand, the mass digitization project caused problem of copyright infringement by threatening right holders. This problem was caused by cooperation among public libraries and commercial organizations. In fact, the first project of mass digitization, which involved a commercial institution, was called the Google 5 projects and five of the largest libraries, namely Harvard University, University of Michigan, New York Public Library, Stanford University and Oxford University were involved. This project became concern among scientists and practitioners of Library and Information sciences due to effect mass digitization on copyright law. According to Hanh (2006), the project digitization of books began in 2004 and this project succeeds to digitize approximately 15 million of books.  In this project, Google, which was a commercial partner, would give one copy of digitizing books to these libraries. Meanwhile, Google also would redistribute these books through the company website. The site would provide snippets, which displayed only three lines, for digitizing books, so these features would make retrieval information on digitizing books easier for users.The increasing number of users, who were access digitized books, encouraged Google to obtain financial benefit. Thus,the Google 5 earns money from advertisements and subscriptions. However, the Google 5 project was sued by Author Guild America and Association of America Publisher. These plaintiffs point out that those authors had a privilege on derivative advantages, which included electronic rights from their books. Although they had privilege, they would have lost their financial gain because the Google 5 did not ask permission to use their books.

Another problem of mass digitization was orphan books licensing. A preliminary study of United States of Copyright Department indicates that orphan books licensing would become obstacle for mass digitization. According to Office (2006), orphan book can be defined a book which required permission from copyright holders, but the right holders cannot be located or found by the parties who wishes to use this book. The obstacle of orphan books came from extending the length of copyright holders from 20 years to 70 years from the author death, so parties who want to get author permission cannot get licensing to redistribute orphan books because the difficulty of getting license of orphan books is to find the right holders, who might be die but the their copyright have not already expired. In addition, the number of orphan books increased year by year due to copyright holders’ extension. According to Clair (2006), the extension implied on increasing number of orphan books with around 90 per cent of books published from 1923 to 1950. Furthermore, the cost of re-licensing orphan books was expensive. The expenditure to re-locate original author of orphan books and to register these books were included into re-licensing cost.

Turning to the question of why government should protect the copyright holders of orphan books due to mass digitization. There are two reasons to answer this question. The first reason is the right holders of orphan books contribute to enlighten societies by disseminating knowledge through their books. The second reason is the more challenging issue on the orphan books protection because the right holder would meet the books piracy due to mass digitization. The  books piracy is concerned by some experts. According to Kevles (2013), the advantages of mass digitization project for equality accessing information cannot be a justification to occupy the copyright of orphan books illegally. The difficulties to find the right holders of orphan books is not a justification for use their books without their permission. Although the right holdersmight bedie , they still deserves to receive the copyright protection for their books.

In conclusion, this essay has described the trend of mass digitization cope with the problem and its solution. It cannot be denied that mass digitization gives advantages for societies. The project of mass digitization provides indexing of digitize books, so societies can use these books for education and research purpose. However, the mass digitization caused problem for threatening right holders.This situation might be happen since the Google 5 project tends to earn money from advertisement and subscription, while the project did not ask permission to right holders, whose books were digitized by Google. Another problem of mass digitization is orphan books licensing. The extension of license books published from 1923 to 1950 made obstacle for the project to get permission. To cope with these problems, it is suggested thatgovernment should protect the copyright holders of orphan books because the right holders of orphan books have a contribution to enlighten societies and they have met a weak position to against books piracy due to mass digitization.

 Top of Form

REFERENCESBottom of Form

Clair, G.S (2006). Mass Digitization Projects: Celebration and Challenges: 3. Retrieved from www.ulib.org/conference/2006/4.pdf

Hahn, T. B. (2006). "Impacts of mass digitization projects on libraries and information policy." Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 33(1): 20-24.

Kevles, B. (2013). Will Google Books Library Project End Copyright ?. AAL Spectrum May: 36. Retrieved from http://www.aalnet.org/

Myhill, C. E. (2002). "ICT for access to information services for disabled people: an overview of projects and services at Gateshead Libraries Service." Program: electronic library and information systems 36(3): 176-181.

Nielsen, E. K. (2008). "Digitisation of Library Material in Europe: Problems, Obstacles and Perspectives anno 2007." LIBER Quarterly 18(1): 20-27.

Offices. (2006). Report on Orphan Works: A Report of Register of Copyright: 15. Retrieved from http://www.copyright.gov

Shelburne, W. A. (2009). "E-book usage in an academic library: User attitudes and behaviors." Library Collections, Acquisitions, and Technical Services 33(2-3): 59-72.