Idiolexicon

This article in the New Yorker today got me thinking about the nature of the book, about the idea of ownership, whether it be by author, publisher, or the public. When we publish a work, there are certain legal restraints and parameters that belong to that work for a half century or so before it becomes public domain, but, as information becomes more necessarily digital, does that system of publishing, ownership, and authorship threaten to make itself obsolete?

At the center of the debate is Google Books, and their lofty goal (which I totally give the thumbs-up to, however, Idiolexicon takes no stance) of scanning every page of every book ever published, and entering them all into a searchable internet database. A decade from now they hope to have essentially a universal database of all written human knowledge. They've paired with several public and private libraries to scan any and all books and editions which are public domain, as well as having made deals with most every major publisher for the rights to scan new books as they're released. The problem, which is currently making its way to the courts, is that middle ground of books, mostly things published from 1950 to the present, whose copyrights haven't expired, but are currently out of print.

One of the complainants in the lawsuit, The Authors Guild, is fighting Google on its methods, claiming it violates copyright law, and this, the methods, begin to devolve the nature of citation, fair use, and the nature of the book. Essentially, Google scans the entire book into its database page by page, however those complete digital books are not available to the public. What is available to the public are searchable text compiled from every book ever written. Basically a Luxes-Nexus not limited to scholarly journals, but encompassing entire libraries worth of information. According to the Authors Guild, the act of digitizing these books completely, whether or not the entire book is then made public, violates copyright and library fair use laws. Publishers also fear that this method of dissemination would allow the creation of pirate books. Google responds that scanning entire books and making only portions available for information seekers falls under fair use, and the method of disseminating the books doesn't matter (and also, and this is my stance and by no means Google, I welcome a world where pirate copies of Williams' "Spring and All" trade hands on the black market.)

It's an interesting debate over an interesting cause. A searchable library of every published word. When we publish a book, be it creative or scholarly, what expectations do we have for its ownership? As writers we want our words read by as many people as possible, and personally I believe any system that streamlines that availability is a system worth building. I know it isn't as cut and dry as that, and there are many equally valid dissenting opinions. It's a debate worth having, as we see the publishing industry floundering, and successful media expanse into the digital domain. Evolution tells us that the species which survive aren't necessarily the strongest or fastest. but the ones least resistant to adaptation and change. Maybe I view publishing too strictly through the lens of poetics, but poetics are important to me, and I want anyone and everyone to have easy access to poets and their work.

--Patrick