While I would agree in theory that a project like this would be best with opt-in, in reality that would just not work. Publishers would never opt-in to it, if they even respond to your requests at all.
Or, if you do it, do it privately and don't share it on the internet?
I'm not sure why this is a difficult idea; if asking for something and getting permission to do it is so difficult that 'would just not work. Publishers would never opt-in to it'
...then, it seems really obvious that even if you want to do it, technically can do it and you could maybe make a legal argument to doing it doesn't violate any laws...
...why would you do it? Why would you post about doing it?
Come on, that's literally being a selfish dick; spitting in people's faces and waving a 'too bad, you can't sue me' flag.
There are so many things, so many mannnny things that you could work on, why would you choose to pick something that you knew would upset people and you knew you wouldn't get permission to do if you asked?
Why ask permission to do something that doesn’t require permission? I see no more reason why an author should be upset about someone counting the words in their book & assigning sentiment than a builder should get upset about someone counting the # of bricks in a building and assigning subtle color shade differences to them. Neither the author nor the builder has lost anything by it.
Should I need the publisher's permission to write a review of a book? Personally, I find that idea abhorrent. This sounds like an interesting project, unambiguously protected under fair use doctrine, both as analysis and as transformative, and the authors got their knickers in a twist because they are scared of that which they do not understand.
Because copyright in fact is not that strict (Google Books does far more) and you don’t need to respect someone’s boundaries when they don’t have a legal right to those boundaries. Why should we sympathize with people who want far stricter control over the cultural commons?
