How The Google Book Settlement Will Change The Future of Reading

http://io9.com/5501426/5-ways-the-google-book-settlement-will-change-the-future-of-reading

by javanix • 16 years ago

43 10 16 years ago

blhack2• 16 years ago

I wrote a little tongue-in-cheek blog about what I think google is trying to do with books a while ago (it's here: http://newslily.com/blogs/75 if you care to read the whole thing).

Basically, I think that google is run by a couple of hugely wealthy nerds who really do just want to do good things. Google isn't trying to steal copyright away from anyone, they're trying to prevent a bunch of human art and knowledge from disappearing in the basement of some demolished library somewhere.

One of the major things that people who are against what google is doing here don't seem to understand is that they don't gain exclusive rights to the book, they gain distribution rights to their own digital copies (which they will still have to license from the copyright holders if they want to sell). This isn't different than if I were to go home right now and start scanning my book collection, then go to their respective publishers and try to work a deal with them to distribute the digital copy.

I will admit that I might be horribly wrong about this, but this is how I understand it works...

dantheman3• 16 years ago

My understanding is that if anyone else wants to embark on a similar endeavor they will have to make their own settlement with the copyright holders. Which mean google gets a special legal advantage that it shouldn't.

blhack2• 16 years ago

What? Wouldn't that just mean that if somebody wanted to do the same thing that they would have to...do the same thing?

lolcraft• 16 years ago

If we go on doing it [Google's] way, we end up with a wholly-owned list of digitized books, many stolen from their owners, totally controlled, managed, opened and closed to public use, by a profit-making corporation interested in furthering its monopolistic control of information. - Ursula Le Guin

As opposed to, what exactly, how the publishers of the United States of Fictionalamerica do? Or did Le Guin really thought her publisher was a honest non-profit interested on sharing and expanding the public domain?

tjgabbour• 16 years ago

Yes, that quote seemed odd, so I looked deeper at Le Guin's position.

* Most authors weren't represented in the Google Book Settlement, though they will be severely affected by it.

* The settlement is extremely complicated, and it's difficult to put across all her objections in (say) the span of an interview.

* She does want a global digital library, but not under the control of a corporation like Google. Google of course acts in its own interest (and those of its shareholders), and is not even minimally under popular control.

I agree with these points. However, I wish she'd discuss (more than just in passing during an interview) a fair alternative to Google -- one which is free-as-in-freedom and compensates authors/staff. (Or did I miss it?) Because digitalization is very important, and authors' interests do conflict with those of consumers, under our economic system.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2010/02/conversation-ur...

naner• 16 years ago

Preservation and proliferation of culture are more important than strict copyright adherance. I am in favor of Google's agressive approach.

But if they're ad-wording books that seems clearly unethical.

How The Google Book Settlement Will Change The Future of Reading

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