At one point Google Books was supposed to act as a clearinghouse for scans of out-of-print books. You could have purchased a scan of any book on the site for a reasonable price, and libraries could subscribe to a service where the full text of all books was available. This settlement then got shot down because some research libraries and authors argued that this was anti-competitive, and instead wanted Congress to pass a law to free up the rights to orphaned books so anyone could start a competing service. No progress on this was subsequently made because nobody in Congress cares enough about the rights to out-of-print books to get legislation passed. The whole reason why they're out of print when ebooks and print-on-demand exist is that they won't get enough sales to make it worth the time and money to figure out who the royalties should go to. It's not a flashy issue that would make a ton of people vote for you to get re-elected, and it won't create a ton of new jobs. The result is that now nobody outside of Google gets to see the full Google Books scans.

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allturtles 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, this was a great tragedy. I was very sad to see academics at the time arguing against Google providing what would have been one of the greatest storehouses of readily available knowledge in the world, in favor of an imaginary alternative that didn't exist and never would.

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cube00 6 hours ago | parent [-]

> Google providing what would have been one of the greatest storehouses of readily available knowledge in the world

I'd be worried about how much they'd be charging for access once they had the monopoly on so many rare books.

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allturtles 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is exactly the kind of pointless concern I'm talking about. How many legal digitial providers of those rare books are there now? Zero, I believe.

It's the logic of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face, which prefers that no one benefit rather than Google see any benefit.

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anon84873628 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Then at least there would be outrage to drive the passing of the needed legislation which otherwise hasn't come to pass anyway.

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avidiax 6 hours ago | parent [-]

The copyright owner must make new copies of the work available; the price must be no greater than the original price (not inflation adjusted). And if they fail to do so, anyone may produce copies and escrow the original price (less the cost of production) for collection by the copyright holder.

That means that orphan works are effectively in the public domain. Calculus professors can ask students to get the cheaper 2nd edition, not the latest 22nd edition. And a company like Google could make scanned works available in their entirety for a small amount of money for each work. And the copyright holder still gets their end, without having to arrange a printing or hold stock.

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shagie 5 hours ago | parent [-]

As a photographer, do I have to make every photograph that I've ever sold available to anyone to buy forever more? Can I refuse to sell a print to someone? I wasn't famous when I sold one for $20 back in the 90s... if I became famous, would I still need to sell that at $20 (inflation adjusted)?

What happens to limited editions of print runs? Can I not make a run of 200 prints anymore because the 201st will be something that someone could request?

Does a musician have to license any song they made to anyone who asks? Can they refuse to license a song to some organization they disagree with and not have it fall into the orphan works category?

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Amending copyright to the way you describe requires a renegotiation of the TRIPS agreement ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIPS_Agreement ) with all the nations of the WTO (or withdrawing from the WTO).

	▲	avidiax 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Under my proposal, if someone wants to make prints of one of your old photographs, you are getting ~$20, which is ~$20 more than you are getting now. So it doesn't seem like a damage to you. If you get famous and now you could sell a print for $2,000... how is this helping society since the work has already been produced, so no new incentive is necessary? I suppose the rule could make reference to a rival good, i.e. the 22nd and 23rd editions of the calculus textbook. It should not be reasonable for the publisher to make the 22nd edition only available for $1,000, and the 23rd edition for $250. But that definition would invite many lawsuits and chilling litigation in general. A clear definition based on the historic price is much simpler. You can still number your limited runs, and your limited runs still have increased numismatic value over some other reproduction. I don't envision licensing of performance rights in this system, just recordings or reproductions. Is this a reduction of the rights granted by copyright? Yes, intentionally so. It is stripping copyright holders of the right not to copy, against the interests of society in granting that copyright in the first place.

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bigbadfeline 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> It's not a flashy issue

It's a very serious issue, very well known to the people with the connections and power to affect it.

> [ it wouldn't ] make a ton of people vote for you to get re-elected

The tons of people are moved by the media, people are oblivious to the tricks of that trade, for the same reasons, obviously. In other words, this issue isn't something that happens to slip below the radar, it's kept stealthy by well organized engineering and considerable expense.

> and it won't create a ton of new jobs

Nothing ever creates tons of new jobs, the "tons" are reserved for promises and other useless noise.