Mitchell, Michael wrote:
<snip>
Weinheimer Jim wrote:
"<snip> Google's incredible example has shown that scanning massive numbers of books can be done in just a few years, and relatively cheaply. <snip>"
Yes, especially if they are allowed to ignore intellectual property laws. Apparently there are some European countries that are less willing to allow them to do this than the U.S. govt. seems inclined to do.
</snip>
Google was not "allowed" to break intellectual property laws. Google took the very bold step of just scanning books. If the agreement is not accepted by the judge, I believe they may still be found liable.
I think this is one illustration of the need for dynamic companies, as well as for dynamic individuals: to force resolution of issues that would otherwise never occur if we were to wait for some non-existent "consensus." The publishers would never have allowed Google to scan their books if they had asked permission, although on the web they certainly want Google to crawl their websites and Google never asks anyone's permission there. Websites can opt-out with the robots.txt exclusion. It is my understanding that Google is trying to do the same thing with physical materials.
If the agreement is accepted, the publishers, authors and Google can all begin to make money on the books where the publishers decided they did not want to make any more money, i.e. they went out of print. If someone wants to opt out, they can.
James Weinheimer j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu
Director of Library and Information Services
The American University of Rome
via Pietro Roselli, 4
00153 Rome, Italy
voice- 011 39 06 58330919 ext. 258
fax-011 39 06 58330992
Received on Wed Mar 31 2010 - 05:35:35 EDT