Univ. of Chicago professor Douglas Lichtman commented on Lessig's blog entry:

I’m not sure it’s right to say that “the publishers and Authors Guild simply want to tax the value created by Google Print.” To view the case that way is to close the door on a lot of the important substance, for example my worries that indexes like these will be vulnerable to hackers who might use them to gain access to (and distribute) millions of digital files.

Besides, is it so clearly wrong on policy, moral, or economic grounds for authors to want to continue to earn a share of the revenues derived from their work via new technologies? I would almost think that such transitions are necessary, given that old revenue streams die away as new technologies replace them.

Not trying to pick a fight on all this — you and I likely agree that having online search engines for books would be an amazing thing — but I think it’s important to talk through the reasonable concerns on both sides of this one, rather than painting the property rights holders as somehow acting in bad faith.

I said more on all this a few weeks ago at the Chicago Faculty Blog. It would be great to open a careful dialogue on this case. Indeed, maybe we can create a forum to really talk it through online, something like Picker’s Mobblog, or as part of podcast?

Warm regards,

Doug Lichtman
Professor of Law
The University of Chicago

In situations where the two are intertwined, then there must indeed be sharing, and working out the rules on this is indeed complicated.

To return to my favorite topic of 19th century railroads -- the railroad greatly increased the value of land on the Great Plains, but this did not mean that the railroads got all of the increase. Land with a railroad was worth little, but a railroad without farmers was also worth little. Similarly, Google without content to index is a blank page.

posted by James DeLong @ 2:21 PM | Books

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