Google and the Luddites?

Google is being sued for copyright infringement. Filed yesterday, the suit made the news today. The New York Times starts its article as follows, “Three authors filed suit against Google yesterday contending that the company's program to create searchable digital copies of the contents of several university libraries constituted "massive copyright infringement."’

Like it or not, the digital library is coming. Some of us will welcome it. Others, like authors and the publishing industry, will either resist it or move with caution toward digitization. We are all going to have to manage it. I think it is a good thing such cases are being tried because these issues must be resolved and the copyright law clarified. As with all changes in technology, the path will not be smooth.

Some two hundred years ago the timesaving inventions in the textile industry in Great Briton lead to smashing the efficient new looms and rioting in the streets. These Luddites lent their name to anyone who opposes technological change. Fear of loss of income, of the uncertain and unfamiliar, of social displacement all played into the violence of the weavers who feared industrialization. Not all of their fears were unfounded but their resistance could not stop the juggernaut of the power loom.

Fears of infringement of copyright and loss of sales on the part of authors and publishers won’t stop the digital revolution. Changes to accepted and cherished institutions like the book store and the library are inevitable. We can either attack entities like Google that are on the forefront of this movement or we can join the movement or we can wait and watch the trends awhile longer. What we can’t do, or do at our own risk, is ignore the issue and hope it goes away. It won’t.