The Ethics of Private Property: Google & the Courts

Why do you persist with this "public service" thing? Where has Google stated that there is any public service? They haven't!

We regret that this group has chosen litigation to try to stop a program that will make books and the information within them more discoverable to the world.

Foxfyre wrote:

And it is Google who is claiming a benefit for the public good out of this....even claiming a benefit for the authors. If you think that's their motive, swell. I am skeptical.

Nonsense. Google's public comment on the threatened suits has been that it "directly benefits authors and publishers by increasing awareness of and sales of the books in the program". They have made NO claim of any benefit to the general public. Those claims have from from Keene and his ilk.

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Foxfyre wrote:
So you advocate blindly following the law no matter how ill advised, Joe? Or maybe, just maybe the public debate should be what principles we value and the law should reflect that? In many cases it already does

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Foxfyre wrote:
As an aside in response to an earlier comment: In my opinion, an activist judge is not one who rules in a way disagreeable to me. An activist judge is one whose ruling creates law where none existed before.

There is a disconnect between these two statements. If a law is ill-advised, you seem to think it should not be "blindly" followed. What is the alternative?

Your second paragraph in your last post seems inaccurate to me, but I'll let people with more legal knowledge than I get that one.

It's the first step to the end of Intellectual Property laws, which frankly are contrary to the interests of a free and progressive society....

Secrets want to be known; information wants to be shared, and tries as hard as it can to do so. The advent of the digital age has removed the primary cost of sharing information, and therefore the old models of profit off of information scarcity are doomed to die sooner or later. Better to be on top of the situation than to sit around trying to force the old paradigms to still exist; just look at the RIAA and how badly they've reacted and dealt with online music. Books are next...

I don't blame the industry for trying to hold on; a lot of middlemen are going to lose their jobs. But, f*ck em for holding back progress. I really could care less.

Our ethics and morals should dictate what the law should be. Principle should precede law.

Once the law is there however, it is the job of the judge to rule based on its letter and intent. To change that to fit the judge's personal ideology is judicial activism by my definition.

The Google case could go either way. As Craven is so eloquently illutrating here, there is real potential for grave harm to writers and publishers if a judge does not hold fast to the Constitutional principle of property or does not consider intellectual property pertinent to that principle.

Even more, people love Google; fantastic brand recognition and loyalty, intergration into browsers, servers, and desktop searches; I fully expect Google to supplant microsoft within 5 years.

Scary? Well, at least it works well, and reliably. And they seem to have the best repositories of good ideas and minds out of any of the leading internet companies....

In fact, judges must routinely interpret the law -- just as umpires must interpret the rules of the game. This is not a sign of activism, but an inherent part of either job. What differentiates individuals is how they approach this task of interpretation.

Yes, an author or publisher has exclusive rights in determining when and how a work can be copied. As long as the people doing the copying aren't a part of a "library or archive" at least.

If they are however, the Fair Use exemption allows them to make copies without the author's/publisher's consent. They'll have a hard time explaining how Google isn't an archive though...

Copyright law was not written for a case like this, and the judges must interpret as best they can. Whether or not someone calls it "judicial activism" usually just depends on whether they agree with the judge or not.

By your definition, no matter what judges do in this case it will be "judicial activism". They will have to interpret copyright laws that were not written with this kind of case in mind, and doing so will establish a legal precedent.

Are you sure that the issue here will be exclusively copyright laws?

As you note, copyright laws don't really cover this issue.

No no, they do cover this issue. They simply did not have the digital age in mind. But that's par for the course with codification.

So you advocate blindly following the law no matter how ill advised, Joe?

Or maybe, just maybe the public debate should be what principles we value and the law should reflect that? In many cases it already does.

There is no way that Kelo vs New London did, however. And using the 'fair use' principles as the sole basis to decide the Google case could set the same kind of dangerous precedent.

I believe that a people of laws must be governed by those laws. I also thing that principle should precede law.

And why is it that liberals are unable to debate an issue without making their opponent the issue?

joefromchicago wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

So you advocate blindly following the law no matter how ill advised, Joe?

I advocate following the law. And so do you, except for those occasions when you don't like the law. Then you want some judge to change it.

You draw a very strange conclusion about what I want from what I have been saying. And it is not only strange, but it is wrong.

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Foxfyre wrote:

Or maybe, just maybe the public debate should be what principles we value and the law should reflect that? In many cases it already does.

I'm all in favor of changing bad laws. Those changes, however, should take place in the legislatures, not from the benches. That's where you and I differ.

If you had paid attention, you would have seen that we do not differ at all on that point.

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Foxfyre wrote:

There is no way that Kelo vs New London did, however. And using the 'fair use' principles as the sole basis to decide the Google case could set the same kind of dangerous precedent.

I believe that a people of laws must be governed by those laws. I also thing that principle should precede law.

And you believe that a judge should be guided by his/her principles rather than by the law. So once again you show that you are in favor of activist judges.

Again you draw strange conclusions about what I believe. And those strange conclusions are again wrong.

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Foxfyre wrote:

And why is it that liberals are unable to debate an issue without making their opponent the issue?

I don't know. When I talk to a liberal, I'll ask.

But wasn't (at least part of) the topic Keene's assertion, represented here by you, that the Google case threatens to become another instance of activist judges veering away from the Constitution?

What does that assertion even mean when you then turn around and say that you yourself are in favour of letting principle take precedence over the letter of the law when judging cases (like these)?

That's the contradiction within your argument here that people have picked up on, and that you don't seem to be willing to address.

Any exasperation expressed thereabout concerns your argument, not your person.