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 a
result, libraries have begun to digitize 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 then puts forward arguments that government
should protect the copyright holders of orphan books from mass digitization.
On one hand, the digitizing of books
gives advantages for libraries and its users. One of the advantages is that
digitizing these books makes accessing information easier. Digitized books have
a compatibility with modern devices, such as smartphones and tablets. As a
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
less storage space as libraries deposit these books on computer servers.
Compared with a conventional storage, computer servers can deposit millions of
digitized books in on square meter and this might prevent the works from damage
by insects or 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 has
caused problems 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 lost the financial gain from their electronic right on
digitizing books because the Google 5 did not ask permission to digitize their
books.
Another
problem of mass digitization is the orphan books licensing. A preliminary study
of United States of Copyright Department indicated that orphan books licensing
would become obstacle for mass digitization. According to Office (2006), orphan
book can be defined a book required permission from copyright holders, but the
right holders cannot be located or found by the parties who wishes to use this
book. The first problem of orphan books licensing comes from extending the
length of copyright holders from 20 years to 70 years from the author death.
Consequently, number of orphan books would increase year by year. The data
provided by Clair (2006) showed that around 90 per cent of books published from
1923 to 1950 to become orphan books. This situation would exist because the
right holder might be die but the their copyright were not already expire.
Furthermore, the second problem of orphan books licensing is a high cost of
re-licensing orphan books. The cost includes the expenditure to re-locate the
position right holders of orphan books and to register these books in the
Copyright Office. Thus, the Google 5 project prefers to digitize these books
without the right holders permission.
Because the Google has difficulty to find the position of right holders
and the Google will spend enormous money to re-license these books.
Turning to the question of why government should protect the copyright holders
of orphan books. The reason for this is that authors relied on brains
rather than brawn and they
spend considerable time to write books.
Considering this situation, books can be classified into intellectual
property of the authors. Thus,
the authors have a right to gain long term benefits, such as earning royalty
and receiving public acknowledgement. A close analogy for the author of orphan
books is 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 are not a justification for use their books without
their permission. Although the right holders might be die, they still deserves
to receive the copyright protection for their books.
The question, then, is how can orphan copyright
holders be protected?
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 that government
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.
REFERENCES
Clair, G.S (2006). Mass
Digitization Projects: Celebration and Challenges: 3. Retrieved from www.ulib.org/conference/2006/4.pdf
Kevles, B. (2013).
Will Google Books Library Project End Copyright ?. AAL Spectrum May: 36.
Retrieved from http://www.aalnet.org/
Offices. (2006). Report on Orphan Works: A Report of Register
of Copyright: 15. Retrieved from http://www.copyright.gov
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6201-100X
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