[UnfalseDesign]

The difference is that Google isn't pirating the book. It is being hosted on Google Docs. This is no different than if someone put the PDF on Dropbox and made it public. It isn't Google's pirate link. It is a link to a pirated file that just happens to be hosted on Google Docs. The difference here is that Amazon is actually printing the pirated book. Google is just hosting a file that happens to be made publicly viewable.

[Gargoyle]

I'm not sure I personally see much difference. In both cases, the hosting corporation is reproducing a pirated file. One does so physically and one does so on an electronic screen, but both processes are automated piracy.

[billpollock]

We're having a problem with GitHub forks hosting a bunch of pirated copies of our books. GitHub wants us to point to them all -- but they're forks!

[DanBC]

One does so physically, and will charge you money to have the book shipped to you, and is trying to make you think that you're getting the legit book.

[wang_li]

> The difference is that Google isn't pirating the book. It is being hosted on Google Docs. This is no different than if someone put the PDF on Dropbox and made it public. It isn't Google's pirate link.

Google has just exploited a loophole in the law that allows them to provide all the technical expertise and infrastructure to profit from piracy, while remaining legally non-liable.

[dragonwriter]

It's not a "loophole", which implies an unitended gap in the law; the entire intent of the DMCA safe harbor, which was a centerpiece of a debate about the law itself, is to protect online content hosts from liability for copyright violations resulting from digital distribution of user-submitted content in cases like this, so long as they abide by a specified takedown process.

[ori_b]

It's a very good loophole. The alternative would be making any site hosting user content legally liable, which would kill user uploads and content.

[UnfalseDesign]

How is Google profiting from this piracy? There are no ads on the search results page. Considering that one can purchase Python for Kids on the Google Play Store (at least in the US), Google is actually losing money by allowing this.

[danjoc]

>The difference is that Google isn't pirating the book.

Neither is Amazon as I understand it.

>It is being hosted on Google Docs.

Amazon is just printing the book.

>This is no different than if someone put the PDF on Dropbox and made it public.

This is exactly what's happening on Amazon. Someone uploaded the pirated file, as their own. Amazon is simply printing the book, and helping you find it via a search interface. I'm still failing to see a distinction here between what Google and Amazon are doing, beyond the fact that Google's approach is digital, and therefore zero cost.

Both Google and Amazon benefit from the piracy. Amazon directly through sale of product, Google directly through search ad revenue. Both Google and Amazon provide the platform for the piracy. Both Google and Amazon provide search discovery for the pirated product.

[__jal]

Analogies are dangerous, but perhaps one will help here.

The book on Google Docs is similar to someone's cocaine falling out of their pocket and hiding in your couch cushions. You didn't know it was there, and when your partner finds it, you flush it.

The book being printed by Amazon is you finding the bag of coke, cutting it and selling it, splitting the take with your friend.

I'll note that "benefit from" is a construction that can do a huge amount of work. I have "benefited from" some truly horrific historic crimes, despite having nothing to do with them (or even having been born yet). I bet you have, too.

Using less attenuated language that makes clear what's going on is a lot more convincing. It also tends to expose differences, like what is going on here.

[dragonwriter]

Both absolutely would be copyright violations ("pirating the book"), but what Google is doing (until it recieves a proper takedown notice, and even after that assuming it properly complies) is within the DMCA safe harbor. Amazon's action has no comparable safe harbor, because digital hosting of user-submitted content is protected, but hardcopy printing and distribution is not.

[bitmapbrother]

Is Google profiting by the piracy of this book? Also, doesn't Amazon get a cut of this seller's sales? So it would seem Amazon is profiting from this piracy.

[abiox]

this is reductive to the point of being meaningless.