Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Lessig "Google Book Search" Video

Laurence Lessig argues in 'Google Book Search: The Argument' against the claims of piracy made by publishers in their attempts to sue Google. Lessig falsifies these claims through written law. He showed what the claim actually argued was that the copied material was not done so in 'fair use,' He described the parameters of 'fair use,' as explained by written laws, and how what Google is doing fell within the boundaries. He made the stark point that what Google is doing with books is what they have already done for the Internet and all the markets involved.
After Lessig proved the what Google was doing was within the law he made the argument that the publishers rebellion was due to advances in technology at the expense of their profit margin. Just like the farmers trying to claim their rights over the airways above their houses after the invention of the aircraft, in the case of the publishers arguments; "Common sense revolts at the idea" (Lessig, 2).
The foundation for his opinion lies within the common good of the people, which is being overlooked in our capitalist society. The heart of invention is to increase the efficiency of man-kind as a whole, a motive that is ignored in today's world. Drawing from Lessig's argument in his latest blog (Feb. 14, 2007) we can say that a person can capitalize on anything is this world that could be considered a scarce resource, which is almost everything. Resources like wood can be sold for cheaper because they are less scarce then say gold. The Internet, more so its volume, is one thing we can label as infinite, why shouldn't this tool we've invented be given to everyone?
This for me raises larger questions, have humans stopped evolving as a whole? yes, look at the gaps between societies of the world, those which globalization arguably aims to close, in terms of technological, and otherwise, development. If this is so, how far could these gaps get? how far can we leave people without money behind? is a collapse, a crash, inevitable?

Lessig, Lawrence, comp. Google Book Search: the Argument. 14 Jan. 2006. Stanford Center for Internet and Society. 14 Feb. 2007 .

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