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Google Print Holds The Presses
brokenarmsgordon writes "Google Print, the project launched in December to digitize the entire collections of five major libraries, has been put on hold until November. Google will stop cataloging in-copyright books until November to give publishers time to decide if they would like to participate and to mark which books they want excluded from the index. "
It will be interesting to see which titles will be available through it once Google Print is ready for prime-time use.
my geeklog
That's not the actual google blog
Publishers who refuse to participate should be punished. While I respect their right to protect their property I do not respect their lack of foresight nor do I appreciate the damage they do to the free exchange of ideas by artificially limiting access to these valuable resources. Take the time to write to your favorite publishers and let them know that you support the Google Print project and will vote with your dollars for those publishers who do. Here is contact information for three of my favorite publishers.
u s.jsp
Tor Books
E-mail: inquiries@tor.com
Fax: (212) 388-0191
Dead Tree:
Tor Books
175 Fifth Avenue
New York NY 10010.
Perseus Books Group
2300 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Phone: 800-371-1669
Fax: 800-453-2884
Email: perseus.orders@perseusbooks.com
http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/perseus/contact_
Random House
customerservice@randomhouse.com
Random House, Inc.
1745 Broadway
New York, NY 10019
Phone: (212) 782-9000
http://www.randomhouse.com/about/contact.html
From your link: Google Weblog is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google, Inc.
Google's actual blog is http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
From there we have:
"So now, any and all copyright holders - both Google Print partners and non-partners - can tell us which books they'd prefer that we not scan if we find them in a library. To allow plenty of time to review these new options, we won't scan any in-copyright books from now until this November."
So unless told otherwise, Google will assume they have permission to scan copyright work.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
The ideal library, obviously, would be every book ever written neatly indexed and available on-line at Wiki-type sites or dedicated sites, searchable by Google. Knowledge should belong to humanity, it should be among the commons like clean air. Authors obviously tremble with fear of the idea of any and every book being available to anyone for free, for it could potentially cut the revenue they are currently earning on humanity's mass-murder of trees. This destruction must and should stop, moving literature on-line is only a natural step toward a sustain able development.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
You fail to see that the copyright periods keep getting lengthened over time, or ask why, or was why it was not made forever in the first place?
You failed to see whether copyright is necessary to protect the interests of writers, why increasingly unneccessary publishers are asking for more money for cheaper books made on shittier paper.
You failed to explain why we need basic calculus 17th edition when nothing a schoolboy needs to learn has changed in at least a century.
You fail to see that most writers, coders, musicicans, actors, etc. get very little because they aren't annointed as the "in flavor" by their corresponding distribution megalith. These distribution chains are far less necessary than ever before, yet they we have never seen such a rampage against fair use, privacy, individual rights as we see today. All driven by your favorite media special interest group.
you fail to explain why a writer or coder is somehow more deserving than a plumber who cannot write plumbing 1.0 and then sit on his fscking a$$ for the rest of his life. People sitting around doing nothing their whole lives are just as indicitave of "imperfections in the system" as the unemployed poor.
Try working for a living. Done writing a book or some code? Write some more! If your product is worth it, and you price your code correctly, you will make enough money to support you and your family in non-extravagant way - like the plumber. If your project requires more people, scale up accordingly, but stop looking to retire rich and live the rest of your life like f-ing bobby brown and that crack hoe whitney houston.
Musicians, Writers, Actors are all the same, they want to hit the f-ing jackpot while the rest of us work our lives to support them. Arguments of utility to society are bullshit. how did brad pitt make my life better than the guy who unplugs the sewer, or the laid off engineer who designed my 802.11 pcb?
WAAAY TOO MANY creative types worship this jackpot mentality, thinking only about the riches they will win if they join the system. but most who swing for the fences miss and get nothing. How is that different than playing lotto?
Copyrights, patents, IPOs, etc. are not for regular people, they are for publishers, producers, lawyers, Wall Street types, and other parasites who spend their time getting between you and your customer while you spend your time working. Why let them? Is it because your reach exceeds your grasp?
Stop fighting their battle against individual rights for them. Stop helping them to plant spy chips in your DVD player and computer, "to keep you honest".Stop letting them sell you perfectly good hardware with broken software that is used to pull you by the nose where they want you to go. Stop helping them lobby for media taxes and keeping you from looking at your movie on the OS you choose.
In short, just STFU you pompous a$$.
"due to greed in corporate society today..
I fail to see how copyright represents 'greed in corporate society today' anymore than it would have fifty years ago when the writers and publishers would have also objected to this kind of thing."