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Yahoo Competes with Google in Book Scanning

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the my-literary-collection-is-bigger-than-yours dept.

UltimaGuy writes "A consortium backed by Yahoo has launched an ambitious effort to digitize classic books and technical papers and make them freely available on the Web. The company is partnering with the newly formed Open Content Alliance, which aims to offer PDF documents of books to the public at no charge. Consumers will be able to search the contents of the Open Content Alliance's database and download the entire content of any work, such as a scanned copy of a book."

2 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. What do these guys know... by dada21 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...that we don't?

    It seems to me that they're throwing money at an unnecessary application. Does Yahoo know something that we don't? I'd venture that they're starting with PD books to shake the bugs out of their platform so the app works well in round 2.

    Round 2 (current commercial books) won't occur without a massive copyright law change or support of the Author's Guild.

    Hmm.

  2. University of Calif: Yahoo OK, Guttenburg banned by dananderson · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I find it funny (in an ironic way only) that the University of California is allowing its public domain books to be scanned by Yahoo. At the same time, UC libraries prohibit scanning for Project Gutenberg or other true "open" content projects unless they receive $$$$ in royalities.

    I hate to see a University pander to commercial interests, while at the same time, welcome commercial interests such as Yahoo. Money talks, and I'm sure UC is being paid a lot, but libraries are supposed to be public resources too, not exclusive profit-centers :-(.