The Pompeii Effect: Google Books
December 22, 2008
I can hear in my addled goose brain two residents of Pompeii on the day of the eruption, “What’s that vibration?”
The second Pompeiian replies, “Nothing really. It will be okay tomorrow.”
I was thinking about the residents of Pompeii who remained in their town as Vesuvius sent signal after signal that a change was coming. Pompeiians adapted to the here and now, blocking the warning signs. Visit the ruins. What do you see? Plaster casts of those who denied reality frozen in time. The only problem is that these grim reminders are history, not the here and now. So, history in some ways repeats itself.
Pompeii today. Source: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/74/199825971_2a6133cff7_b.jpg
What triggered thoughts of a giant volcano stirring to life? I read “A guide for the Perplexed: Libraries and the Google Library Project Settlement” by Jonathan Band here. The article appeared on December 14, 2008, but I was too busy to read it. I regret the delay. The write up did a good job of walking me through the deal between Google, the Authors Guild, and the bastion of dead tree outfits, the Association of American Publishers. The settlement document consumes about 200 pages of dead tree output, which provides a hint of what’s inside. Lots of words to explain what I perceived as the end of traditional publishing. Like the eruption of Vesuvius, the event has occurred and publishers are now frozen in time just like these plaster casts of those who were not prescient enough to get out of town. Here is a figure described as a crying person. The individual just realized that tomorrow would be different.
Source: http://glutter.typepad.com/photos/italian_sculptures/pompei.jpg
You will need to work through Mr. Band’s write up. I want to highlight three comments that struck me as particularly significant. Remember: when you read the settlement and Mr. Band’s synopsis, you may reach a different conclusion. I am giving my opinion, which is a reminder to the dudes and dudettes who write to me as if I were creating something more than a free Web log recording my thoughts. Spare me the parental comments “You should” or “You need.” No, I won’t and I don’t.
Point 1: Who Controls Distribution?
Mr. Band does not address this point. The elephant in the settlement is that Google is the distribution mechanism. The deal “wraps” traditio0nal publishing in a package and puts that package within the GOOG. Control, therefore, is abrogated by the publishers. Mr. Band noted:
The settlement explicitly “neither authorizes nor prohibits, nor releases any Claims with respect to … any Participating Library’s Digitization of Books if the resulting Digitized Books are neither provided to Google pursuant to this Settlement Agreement nor included in any LDC, or the use of any such Digitized Books that are neither provided to Google pursuant to this Settlement Agreement nor included in any LDC.” (p. 20-21) In other words, the settlement does not restrict fully participating, cooperating, public domain, or other libraries from engaging in other digitization projects outside of the settlement.
With Google touching two thirds of the queries, who is going to go where? As budgets get more severely squeezed, who’s going to offer another access path? The Gates Foundation? More access means more traffic for Google.
The ash is now settling in my opinion.
Point 2: Term in “Google’s Obligations”
Mr. Band summarizes Google’s obligations to do something in five years. When I reflect on what’s happened to the economics of America and traditional publishing in the last 12 months, are you going to predict what will happen in five years? I will. The GOOG becomes the 21st century of the type of monopoly for which Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan prayed. Who has the money, the regulatory clout, and the influence to slow the GOOG? Amazon? Microsoft? Yahoo? I have thought about a wizard emerging from Croatia to rework online information, but as I said in The Google Legacy, the hoped for alternative to Google will just build on the Google. Salvation then becomes another Google, right?
Point 3: Arbitration
Okay, you are going out of business. Your savings are gone. Inflation is rampant. If you worked for a dead tree publisher, that outfit has sucked the pension money months ago. Google offers to wheel and deal for your writings. What will you do? Tough question for you. Not for me. As a writer of really lousy stuff, I will take Googzilla’s deal. I get the promise of ad revenue. I may get a cash payment. I may get free access to information so I can write more so-so reports. In short, as Google’s economic power grows via its business model and superior infrastructure, Google can morph from distributor to full-service end-to-end information River Rouge. Yep, arbitration is really going to work in this hypothetical environment. Arbitration works pretty well when each party has skin in the game and the balance of power is reasonable. In today’s economy with the deterioration of globalization and the emergence of Google as a nation state, arbitration is an interesting notion.
To sum up, I think the deal with publishers and the Authors Guild is a digital eruption of Vesuvius. The landscape has been changed. Okay, now marshal your facts and disagree. I enjoy the assertions of modern day Pompeii residents saying, “Nah, Nothing to worry about.” Check out the image below.
No big deal. Wrong. Big deal.
Stephen Arnold, December 22, 2008
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