Google's recent publishing and library initiative, if left unchallenged, could change the structure of the publishing industry and jeopardize the relationship between writers and readers that has sustained authorship for more than 500 years.
The issue at stake is not the value or potential of digitization, which is considerable. It is instead about the control of digitization, which should rightfully remain with the protectors and licensors of copyright rather than with technology companies. The battle, in other words, is not about digitizing books, but about who does it.
Our objections to Google's plans start with how a company younger than most of the copyright material which it blithely proposes to capture and supply in "showcase browsing opportunities" seems to make up its strategy as it goes along. This is symptomatic, of course, of a technological arena that is inherently ephemeral. The apparent permanency of binary numbers and digital code has always been largely illusory, since the formats in which data material is stored become outmoded every few years, and each new generation of storage device seems determinedly incompatible with its predecessor. Who now remembers that a program called WordStar once had 70% of the word processing market for personal computers or, for that matter, that the CD-ROM was once effortlessly going to replace children's storybooks? Formats and applications rarely last for long; it is copyrights that endure, first in bookstores while copyright pertains, then in libraries.
This makes Google's insistence on owning its electronic copies of copyrighted material even more worrying. As part of an entirely different industry than publishing, Google's commitment to intellectual property is at the mercy of business trends that may be entirely unrelated to ours. And what happens to Google's assets if it goes bust? Inconceivable? Tell that to the shareholders of other former IT giants that are now wisps in the winds of technology history, like Digital Equipment and Wang Laboratories.
Google's promise that only a small part of any book will be available for free inspection is unreassuring. Once a whole book is captured, pressure inevitably will grow for dissemination of all it, however limited its initial availability. Moreover, if some publishers cannot resist the lure of incremental income from the increased exposure of their books, since it doesn't at first seem to conflict with (modest) print sales, the pressure will grow on all publishers to make all of their books available for online use. How many individual titles are such "must haves" that a publisher can negotiate special terms on their behalf? The Da Vinci Code, Harry Potter, perhaps the Oxford English Dictionary—that's about it.
That digitization will be an important phenomenon is a truism—it already is. Publishers already are adapting what were once print-only publications to electronic formats: maps and atlases, scientific and medical journals, even consumer encyclopedias. We are also arguably more alert to digital opportunities than the peddlers of electronic formats. But that should come as no surprise: copyright holders are comparatively agnostic as to format, while purveyors of technology are often handcuffed to a preferred electronic platform
Paradoxically, it was publishers who were first keen to exploit e-books' potential, thinking it largely irrelevant whether people read Zadie Smith in print or PDA format, provided they paid for her work. The technology lagged behind, not the willingness of copyright holders. That won't last: whether it takes five, 10, 20, even 50 years, most trade publishers we know are happy to concede that a new generation who've grown up reading on high-resolution screens will push even recreational reading into an electronic arena. At an airport full of long-flight passengers, downloading multiple titles onto a compact PDA will surely edge out the purchase of a bagful of heavy paperbacks one day.
That's the day book publishers need to be ready for, not by sticking their heads in the sand (though frankly, we don't know many who are), and not, more to the point, by surrendering to the latest "all-powerful" software company that's heard that Content is King and therefore wants a regicide. To publishers we therefore say: Don't take fright; don't take cover; take charge.
