Is Richard Charkin's perspective skewed? Photograph: Graeme Robertson
Now I'm not usually in the business of bigging up small-time crooks, but when the chief executive of Macmillan, Richard Charkin, confesses to nicking a couple of laptops, I think he deserves a pat on the back.
These weren't just any old laptops, you see, they were Google's laptops. Charkin and an unnamed colleague visiting BookExpo America in New York City decided to give Google a taste of their own medicine by removing the laptops from the Google book search stand until they were asked to return them.
"Our justification for this appalling piece of criminal behaviour?" asks Charkin. "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."
He confesses that the escapade left him feeling a little "shabby", but suggests that Google "should feel the same playing the same trick on authors and publishers".
Now I don't know where you stand on Google's project to digitise absolutely everything, but I think you'll have to agree that Charkin's point is well made.
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