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I have been warning about this for 20 years and we've arrived. I once confronted a Google VP about this a decade ago when they were already underway. I asked her about the dangers of one company controlling all the digitized books instead of the public libraries. She assure me that they would NEVER restrict any access, even though they had searched the world's rare book collections in libraries public and private and had bought all the known copies of many important and rare historical works. Addition, they had no begun the University Library phases yet, but assured us that those libraries would still exist and be available to the public. I said it was far too risky, why wasn't it the library of congress digitizing the books assuring access to them. She blew that question off as well. Now I know why. And now they are nearly complete.
This is something that should be concerning to any political ideology. But it may already be too late.
Brian Austin Whitney Founder Just Plain Folks jpfolkspro@gmail.com Skype: Brian Austin Whitney Facebook: www.facebook.com/justplainfolks
"Don't sit around and wait for success to come to you... it doesn't know the way." -Brian Austin Whitney
"It's easier to be the bigger man when you actually are..." -Brian Austin Whitney
"Sometimes all you have to do to inspire humans to greatness is to give them a reason and opportunity to do something great." -Brian Austin Whitney
It occurred to me years ago that even printed books might be 'edited', the copy I buy in New York City, perhaps different from the one you bought in San Diego. Digitized works could easily leave out a sentence here, a paragraph there, and who would know the difference? The author might review the copy made available to him, and not see anything missing. But the copy in New York or San Diego might omit some strategic bit of information and the reader would have no idea. We've seen 'redacted' products, where we don't know what's been left out, and only know it's redacted because they tell us. By the time we might get access to an unredacted copy, there's no way we could be sure what we finally got access to was what was in the original. Data coming out of The American War in Southeast Asia (1947-1975) was 'sanitized' to deny information to The American People. The Dershowitz-Barr version of the Mueller Report is heavily redacted. Now imagine a digitized book that doesn't tell you something's been left out. Yes, we are there, "1984", Orwell's vision of dystopian manipulation at the hands of persons unknown. Several years ago history books coming out of Texas, where 'censors' decide what will be sold to the Texas school systems, and that becomes the standard text for all other states, told that Napoleon won the Battle of Waterloo, a loss of such magnitude it became a metaphor for any great loss; "He met his Waterloo." National Public Radio listed several other distortions and totally wrong entries in the textbook with Napoleon's 'alternative facts'. A friend told of a book an acquaintance told him about, revealing some current day intrigues. The man returned it to the library. My friend went to check it out. He was told, cryptically, "That book is no longer available." I bought a history book in a yard sale. I vaguely remember the cover, an American Flag flying from my years in grade school or high school. I went to the index and looked up all the entries of John F. Kennedy. None of them told you he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas November 22, 1963. Young people told me they didn't learn of it until they got to college. This was pre-"JFK", the movie. That movie, which I saw about seven times as I traveled, was edited in some showings. One scene, where Lori Metcalf's character announces that the mayor of Dallas, Earle Cabell, has a brother, Charles Peare Cabell, who was Deputy Director of the CIA, until JFK fired him and Allen Welsh Dulles, the Director, and Richard Bissell, CIA Director of Plans, for trying to manipulate him with lies about the Bay of Pigs Invasion, an Eisenhower-Nixon-Dulles operation JFK allowed to go forward on April 17, 1960. That scene wasn't in all the versions I saw in theaters. She holds up an 8 X 10 photograph of Charles Peare Cabell, who has been effectively erased from history. It wasn't hard to do. Perhaps...it was just... a coincidence.
There will always be another song to be written. Someone will write it. Why not you? www.garyeandrews.com
Books have been my best friend since I first wandered into a library at 6 years old. I read at least a book a day for 35+years. This is a shame, and should be a crime.
Have a goodun,
John W. Selleck BMI Songwriter A day without learning is a day lost forever.
I didn't watch all of this because he rambled so much and I didn't have time to wait for him get to the point. What I understood from the part I did watch was that books that were previously available only to those with access to academic libraries were still available to those people, but now also digitally. So, it's an expansion of access - an academic in Los Angeles or London no longer has to travel to New York or Naples to read a book. The producer also grumbled about not being able to check out certain books. This was standard practice at reference libraries I used as a student. You had to ask for the publication and they brought it to you for you to read there. You were not allowed to take it home with you for obvious reasons.
The one bit I didn't understand was why the digitized books were not just made available to the general public. Maybe that was discussed later in the video. Maybe to do with how the project is financed? Or copyright, although that would obviously not apply to those in the public domain.
Yes, Google is happy to supply you with endless articles that agree with their actions. You do realize that Google search is worthless for actual research right? It is so heavily edited and the first pages are bought and paid for on nearly every subject. Do you know any Google editors? I do. I know 2 actually. What they tell me privately is even more worrisome than the video. He was balanced in his coverage but the lack of diversity of opinion on YouTube and within the Google search results is already problematic and getting worse by the day. They have openly stated for years their goal when someone searches is to provide a single curated answer to everything. All other results will be disregarded. That is a GOAL? Really? Don't bother to question anything, it is ALL settled, of course with the answer that best serves the elites in power.
Brian Austin Whitney Founder Just Plain Folks jpfolkspro@gmail.com Skype: Brian Austin Whitney Facebook: www.facebook.com/justplainfolks
"Don't sit around and wait for success to come to you... it doesn't know the way." -Brian Austin Whitney
"It's easier to be the bigger man when you actually are..." -Brian Austin Whitney
"Sometimes all you have to do to inspire humans to greatness is to give them a reason and opportunity to do something great." -Brian Austin Whitney
I didn't watch all of this because he rambled so much and I didn't have time to wait for him get to the point. What I understood from the part I did watch was that books that were previously available only to those with access to academic libraries were still available to those people, but now also digitally. So, it's an expansion of access - an academic in Los Angeles or London no longer has to travel to New York or Naples to read a book. The producer also grumbled about not being able to check out certain books. This was standard practice at reference libraries I used as a student. You had to ask for the publication and they brought it to you for you to read there. You were not allowed to take it home with you for obvious reasons.
The one bit I didn't understand was why the digitized books were not just made available to the general public. Maybe that was discussed later in the video. Maybe to do with how the project is financed? Or copyright, although that would obviously not apply to those in the public domain.
Of course he answers that, but I find people who only want 1 pre determined answer have little tolerance hearing anything else.
If they only scanned 1 copy of a book then only 1 person at a time can access it. They say that is for "copyright reasons" which would only be true for non-public domain books. They offer no explanation beyond that. But they also bar any non-student of a university from accessing the original copies and in some cases don't allow them to be checked out if they are in the digital library. There is no reasonable person who could support such unnecessary suppression of public domain material. But these agreements also prevent anyone else from scanning those rare books. Many of those libraries won't even allow significant time to even a single researcher who is there in person. It's a heinous abuse and no one has the power to stop them worldwide. These universities, especially the public ones should never be allowed to suppress access to the public. The library of Congress should have digital copies of every book available to every citizen.
Censorship has never been this bad anywhere in the world.
Brian Austin Whitney Founder Just Plain Folks jpfolkspro@gmail.com Skype: Brian Austin Whitney Facebook: www.facebook.com/justplainfolks
"Don't sit around and wait for success to come to you... it doesn't know the way." -Brian Austin Whitney
"It's easier to be the bigger man when you actually are..." -Brian Austin Whitney
"Sometimes all you have to do to inspire humans to greatness is to give them a reason and opportunity to do something great." -Brian Austin Whitney
As I said, I don't have time to listen to a long rambling video. That doesn't mean that I only want one predetermined answer.
This guy's commentary is misleading. Firstly he suggests that you used to be able to go into a reference library and just browse the shelves. This was true for some books, but not for all. The more valuable ones would be kept in a more secure location and you would have to request that they be brought out. The same would be true of more obscure works for space considerations. It has also always been the case that you couldn't take some books away with you. You had to read them there. They might be the only copy and the risk of loss or theft had to be avoided. There is nothing sinister in this.
If you look up the Hathi Trust Emergency Access program, you will see that it is designed to provide access to books that were previously available to university students and staff if a library is forced to close. The agreement seems to be that if the library has one physical copy it can make available one digital copy. Thus the same level of access is maintained as before. This digital copy replaces the physical copy, which can no longer be lent out. This is the "censorship" you are so concerned with - continued access during the pandemic at the same level as before. After this, they will be able to lend out the physical copy again. It might seem weird that they don't just take advantage of the digital possibilities to make a work available to as many people as want it at any time, but this is copyright related. They have purchased one copy. This is the same kind of thing as you will find with ebooks from your public library system - there are a limited number of copies available because that is what the library has paid for and if they're all checked out, you have to wait. Copyright is a real issue. It's 70 years from the author's death, so books that are 100 -120 years old can still easily be under copyright. Authors earn part of their living from sales to libraries and the suggestion that their books should just be pirated is a bit rich considering what we think of such practices in the music world. In fact, many authors have lamented the practices of Google Books accusing Google of piracy, and not without reason.
There will be books that are not subject to copyright and, given time, each library could go through their collections and identify these and the agreement could be modified for these works, but this is an Emergency Access program. It has been put together quickly and for a limited time.
The producer seems to grasp this one-for-one concept, but then goes on to draw wild conclusions from it with emotive graphics of 1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451. That's when I realized that I had just wasted 16 minutes.
Where does he get the idea that books related to academic research are not subject to copyright claims? He just made that up. And if he can't work out why a library full of people who typically spend a long time there, browsing, finding what they want or waiting for the librarian to bring it and then possibly reading it there is more dangerous than a supermarket, that makes me a lot smarter than him and I think you'll agree I'm not that smart.
I have serious issues with Google when it comes to books (see above), but this just seems to be the usual YouTube alarmist fare. It's also boring and seems to be part of a YouTube channel that peddles conspiracy theories full of the usual nonsense about Bill Gates and even antisemitic innuendo. It may be that in the remaining 26 minutes the producer morphs into a balanced and creditable commentator, but it seems more likely to me that all the time he says he has spent in libraries has taught him very little about academic rigor.
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"When will we all, as artists, creators and facilitators learn that the so-called experts in our lives are nothing more than someone who has stepped forward and called themselves an expert?" –Brian Austin Whitney