The Google Warehouse?

Last month, Google provided more details on its foray into the e-book world, first announced over a year ago.  In their announcement, Google said that it would operate mostly as a warehouse, essentially as a bridge between publishers and retailers.  They also made clear that they were not launching their own e-reader but that they intended to provide “cross-platform books” mostly served over the network to e-reader devices, cell phones, and computers.  The plan is to launch in early 2010 with roughly 600,000 books which is close to double Amazon’s current offerings (that doesn’t include approximately 1,000,000 free books for various platforms, which they and others already make available in various forms).

But the Google announcement implies some other significant consequences.  First, they will be creating some kind of e-book software platform; second, they are trying to move e-publishing towards a service-based model; third, they are creating a framework that could be used to deliver the books that may be available under the disputed Google Books Settlement (however it is transformed).

The Software Platform. A digital warehouse implies a software platform and it’s worth thinking about what that platform will look like.  Google has formally embraced the EPUB platform, which is a flexible framework from IPDF based on open standards.  This is good news for e-books generally but may be bad news for Amazon, whose Kindle (unlike Sony’s e-readers and B&N’s Nook) doesn’t currently handle the EPUB format.  In addition, EPUB is a format for delivering standalone “book bundles” and doesn’t specify how it would work with the kind of service/access-based model that Google is discussing.  Finally, ePUB has “plug-in” DRM and Google hasn’t specified what scheme it will use.

Sony and Barnes and Noble seem to have settled on Adobe’s “Digital Editions” DRM, but Google hasn’t discussed DRM for their e-books.  The name “Google Editions” suggests that Google might implement their own flavor of DRM, possibly based on some kind of server access control  However, since they will support offline reading, they probably will have some kind of familiar offline DRM.

Books In The Cloud.  The service-based aspect of Google’s plans is not unlike the approach of the other big players (like Amazon) which keeps books in a centralized server and provides for downloads to digital devices.  It provides a kind of centralized control to publishers through their contracts with the service providers (Amazon, Google, etc) who deliver the actual books.  It’s clear why publishers would like this model but it also permits striking violations of trust and expectation such as Amazon’s funny-if-it-weren’t-tragic deletion of Orwell’s 1984 from reader’s Kindles.  In many ways, because it diminishes future rights, it is profoundly anti-consumer.

There is also an argument that a server-based model for e-books undermines the ecology of ideas which has characterized post-Enlightenment thought.  Books are the among the key carriers of perspectives and ideas across generations.  Their ability to do this is based, in part, on their independent durability, which is lost in a server-based scheme.  Sergey Brin’s NYT op-ed piece “A Library to Last Forever” argues that the value of Google’s book project (and, by extension, their disputed settlement) is in avoiding the ultimate or practical loss of knowledge associated with physical books.  This is true, but it’s also important to be careful to not introduce new risks as our books go digital.  Part of the reason that the loss of the Library at Alexandria (for example) was so tragic was that books were difficult to share and copy (legitimately or illegitimately).  We don’t want to make the same mistake!

Think of the Orphans.  The Google Warehouse would presumably also host the vast number of orphan works which Google would be allowed to license under the terms of the Google Book Settlement.  Depending on how the settlement is reworked (and we should hear soon, though it will probably be further challenged), this could mean that the warehouse could shortly have many millions of out-of-print but copyrighted titles (leaving all the other big players in the dust) that would be unavailable to possible competitors without significant investment (that may be fair) and tremendous risk (not so much).

It is ironic that Google, the disintermediator par excellence who helped blow up the economics of “old media”, might end up becoming an uber-mediator for book publishing.  And it is disturbing that it’s centrality and necessity won’t be based on technology (like the victims of disintermediation past), but on law and copyright, which is (alas) more durable and less susceptible to innovation.

Advertisement

Tags: Amazon, ebooks, Google, Kindle