shouting loudly

In an effort to highlight publishers’ concerns over Google’s scanning of millions of books, Macmillan CEO Richard Charkin (briefly and harmlessly) stole two of Google’s laptops from a book expo booth.

Here’s what he blogs about the stunt:

The owner of the computer had not specifically told us not to steal it. If s/he had, we would not have done so. When s/he asked for its return, we did so. It is exactly what Google expects publishers to expect and accept in respect to intellectual property.

‘If you don’t tell us we may not digitise something, we shall do so. But we do no evil. So if you tell us to desist we shall.’

I felt rather shabby playing this trick on Google. They should feel the same playing the same trick on authors and publishers.

This insanely inaccurate equivocation between holding a limited monopoly via copyright and owning physical property is a tragically common argument, and I have discussed its cancerous/persuasive role as a metaphor (rather than a literally true claim) in this post.

Rebutting this view of property, and sparking an interesting discussion on his blog, Lessig provides a laundry list of reasons that copyrighted expression isn’t the same as physical property. Numero uno:

Any such list must begin with the point obvious to all since the beginning of something called “IP,” but set to poetry by Jefferson. Read the full quote at the Connexions project. But the relevant line marking the difference here is this: “Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it.” If the [Charkin] has Google’s computers, Google can’t use them. But if Google indexes out of print books, that does not — in the least — reduce the access anyone else has to the same property.

Though Lessig is right, the connection to physical property is still a powerful metaphor, and we still need a healthier metaphor (copyright as monopoly license, e.g. an electricity company’s charter? Well, SOMETHING!) that can supplant it. Charkin’s stunt is just a particularly daring embodiment of a metaphor–one that still has persuasive power despite its utter incoherence if taken literally.

(Link credit for Lessig’s post goes to Siva V.)