The Battle of Intellectual Property vs. The Human Right of Universal Access to Knowledge

So they can present themselves as an extension of those libraries or as a digital library themselves. What is the difference in going to one of this libraries and not just browsing, but reading an entire book there in the library and doing it through Google's Book project? If the books scanned are paid for by the library and made available to the "visitors" of the library, what is the difference? The only difference is that the Library can now serve a larger audience, a global audience, and not just those within close vicinity to it. What is the illegality of that?

A long list of libraries allow people to borrow books via the old postal service. What is the difference? That Google allows you to skip the 2 weeks wait for the book to arrive and browse the book in the library instantly?

Two examples of borrowing books by mail can be found here:

• The Penn Library at the University of Pennsylvania allows faculty members and students to request and borrow books while away from campus.
  (See Books by Mail program at http://www.library.upenn.edu/borrowing/booksbymail.html)
  
  
• Canada's Post Office allows the exchange of books among libraries or patrons to borrow books from public libraries and nonprofit organizations.
  (Canada Post Library Books: http://www.canadapost.ca/tools/pg/manual/e02-e.asp)

Just as well, it is common practice for libraries to have agreements with other libraries to offer Interlibrary loans that allow its users to request books from other libraries. What is the difference with Google "requesting" the book from one of Harvard's libraries and letting you browse it instantly without having to wait for weeks to have it shipped to you as an Interlibrary loan?

As an interesting example, let me quote this:

"The (United States) Library of Congress (LC) has been lending books from its collection to other libraries since 1902, when Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam first established LC 'as the nation's library of last resort.' This year, through its Collections Access, Loan and Management Division (CALM), LC will respond to over 60,000 requests from libraries throughout the world for book loans and article photocopies."
(US Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/rr/loan)

But more interesting though is the precedent of the Digital Interlibrary Loan from the US Library of Congress itself: "The Library of Congress Collections Access, Loan and Management Division now scans this type of material and delivers the images via the Web. This makes public domain items widely accessible for current and future requests and contributes to the preservation of the original. Items protected by copyright are not scanned in this program."
(US Library of Congress Digital InterLibrary Loan: http://www.loc.gov/rr/loan/illscanhome.html)

So, one could argue that if Google presents itself as a Digital Library or intermediary between the actual libraries and the end user, it can very well conform to the Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States. (Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States: http://www.ala.org/ala/rusa/rusaprotools/referenceguide/interlibrary.htm)

This argument is the most important one from my perspective and I hope yours too. For it is the real underlying issue and the core of the issues at stake here.

The arrival of the Internet and global networks for the distribution of content, information and knowledge have changed forever the entire distribution process and capabilities available to society.

Our current reality is quite different from the no-longer existing conditions that gave birth to the existing legal framework that defines today's Intellectual Property Law and justified the need for it.

It is not just that teenagers and average citizens can duplicate and distribute content easily and are doing so. There is a deeper change going on here: The ability and capabilities available to society as a whole.

Given the changes brought by the Internet and this so called Information Society to the distribution and exchange of content we need to go back and redefine the very role of the role of intellectual property in maximizing total wealth for our society.

Existing legislation was built to protect a distribution scheme defined and built during long gone conditions where society could not easily, freely and inexpensively replicate and distribute content. Enforcing it does not "maximize total wealth" but to the very contrary it's an act of legitimizing unfair wealth distribution and not taking advantages of the resources available to society as a whole to maximize this elusive notion of total wealth.

In the past, there was an intrinsic value to society of a limited and organized number of institutions and corporations to be in charge of the distribution of content, culture and intellectual property. It was then justifiable for these entities to charge for their services and perhaps even to control activities outside their realm in order to maximize total wealth. These entities did large investments on distribution channels and on the format of the content produced that went beyond the mere production process.

But in a new world where instant distribution is available to anyone with access to a network, they bring no additional value to the "total wealth" maximization equation. The protection of their role in the content and knowledge production and dissemination process should now be limited to the production process, a process in which they can still bring great value to society. But society is better served by open and "distributed" distribution of content, knowledge and culture, rather than it being controlled and taxed by a limited number of entities.

If we, as a society are not able to transform our structures to take advantage of the huge potential information technologies provide us just because age-old structures, powers and interests are able to twist and manipulate a legal system, then we are in for a long struggle for human development and digital human rights for all.