Slashdot Mirror
$125 Million Settlement In Authors Guild v. Google
James Gleick writes "Authors, publishers, and Google are announcing a huge settlement deal today in their lawsuits over the scanning of millions of copyrighted books in library collections. Google has agreed to a huge payout for books that were scanned without permission, but now they'll be allowed to scan the books legitimately. Most important, they'll be able to put millions of books online, including those still in copyright — not just for searching and not just in snippets. There is a groundbreaking new licensing system meant to make the books as widely available as possible while protecting the authors' copyrights and enabling them to share in the revenue. Some will differ, but personally I think this is a wonderful outcome, for readers and for authors alike."
books written 50 years ago and already made millions for their writer's grandsons should not be still being used as cow cashes, instead should join the public domain to the common heritage of human civilization.
Read radical news here
Except that it wasn't infringment. This was just another mosquito attempting to suck blood from what it saw as a rich target.
Doesn't this sorta set the precedent that Google should be paying some kinda royalty to youtube usrs that generate a lot of traffic, if it's no longer considered legitimate to just "take" content and post it on the internet?
stuff |
who was the asshole? the lawyers on both sides
"A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers." Hayek
Which will only encourage your "obscure sources" to keep trying to suck money using an obsolete business model, all the better if somebody with deep pockets(Google) is willing to pay.
Hell, they should be paying Google for the free and wide-reaching exhibition of their writings.
One big problem with this is that copyright is not only about the money, but also about controlling what the work is used for.
Example: Imagine that I wrote some nice music 20(Or whatever the limit is) year ago. Anybody who would want to buy it have already done so, so I would lose money by registration for a new longer copyright. But if I let the work fall into public domain $EVIL_CORPORATION* could use it to advertise their new product. And I would have that.
And if I wrote a book, I would hate to have to have a film made out of it without me having a say in who/how it was made. (Just imagine what would happend if Uwe boll could have made a "Lord of the rings" while Tolkien was still alive. That might have given Tolkien a nightmare that no man should have.
So what we need is a new copyright category where work after 20 year, becomes "Free to use for private non-business use" only.
*(Microsoft,The church,Walmart/Political party/My evil enemy)
I'm sorry- How is an author's desire to get paid for his sweat, labor, and time "obsolete"? On the contrary, I consider that progressive.
Certainly more progressive than the 10,000-year-old practice of "shackling a man" and forcing him to work for free (slavery). The Romans built a whole culture around "educated slaves" who produced written documents and other useful arts. Caesar himself had several enslaved writers. That doesn't mean the American and European Unions should follow down the same path.
When you steal a book, and keep it permanently without compensation, that makes you no better than the Plantation Masters. IMHO.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
When you steal a book, and keep it permanently without compensation, that makes you no better than the Plantation Masters. IMHO.
Wow. Hyperbole anyone? Last I checked we are not:
In case you weren't aware, you can dislike a particular viewpoint without making strained comparisons to slave holders (or any of the other favorites, e.g. Nazis).
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
What is with these stupid 'not a viable business model' posts in every article about copyrights? Do authors write books? Yes. Do publishers publish them? Yes. Does the author get paid? Yes. Does the publisher make a profit? Yes. Hence, viable business model. The only non-viable business models are the ones where the costs exceed the revenues. Unfortunately, many /.ers seem to think that 'authors get paid, results get given away for free' is somehow a viable business model.
Actually, the snippets and search were short passages that in all likelihood would have been found non-infringing on the grounds of fair use rights. But, we'll never know because they settled, and quite a decent settlement it is.
I'm sorry- How is an author's desire to get paid for his sweat, labor, and time "obsolete"? On the contrary, I consider that progressive.
The desire to get paid for your work is not obsolete. Distributing data on physical media is. Especially obsolete is the idea that you need some kind of agent to distribute it for you (while he collects most of your potential profit).
Thats not to say that there is yet a perfect system for compensation, but that is the price you pay for living in exciting times.
When you steal a book, and keep it permanently without compensation, that makes you no better than the Plantation Masters. IMHO.
Firstly - it is not stealing, as it has been pointed out in many /. discussions, it is copyright infringement.
Secondly - Nice trolling. That has to be the dumbest thing I have read on the internet this month.
No, *you* give control of the work to the public domain when you publish. To encourage you and others to give more work to the public domain we give you a temporary monopoly over it. If you want complete control of your writing you should keep it to yourself.
It is a privilege to be a writer, artist, musician.
Oh, is it? I didn't realize we could tell people not to be writers artists or musicians.
One should expect a living, but never, ever, riches.
How arrogant of you to decide that someone in a given profession should never make more money than you deem necessary.
The reason we're having this big to-do about "copyright" is because the advent of mass media made it possible for creative people to become super-wealthy. The only group of people who benefited from that were TV and movie execs, record label owners and publishing giants.
Really? It seems only a few of the creative people ever become "super wealthy." It's interesting that actors, writers, and musicans can afford million dollar mansions, since you claimn tney haven't benefited from copyright.
They dangle a small handful of uber-wealthy artists in front of the world, which creates millions of wannabe "stars" who will only be disappointed and poor. It's been bad for the arts and for the psyches of several generations of college dropouts.
Honestly? You don't think that perhaps those that don't make it don't have the talent? If you've ever watched reality TV, it amazes me how highly some of these "artists" think of themselves, when in reality they are actually really awful.
I'm encouraged and hopeful for a return to a more workmanlike model for making a living in the arts.
You mean where only the rich funded artists, and thus were the only ones that benefited from the artists' work?
Well, not all slaves were "beaten into submission". He was referring to the Roman slaves which, varying, could simply be people who did what they were told to do -- fed, boarded, but not allowed personal freedom to earn money, etc.
Even the American slave wasn't always toiling endlessly in the fields until the slavemasters came out to whip them in for their gruel. Some of them had great report with their masters and were included on the decisions of the day -- were they free? Certainly not. But neither were they treated like dogs (some were, just not all).
Anyway, I do think it's funny the GP doesn't recognize his comparison of authors with songwriters. Book money, as music money, deserves to go mostly to the creator of the books or musics -- the talent. But the marketing of that talent is what makes the large sums of money, and fair share should be given to the companies that allow the authors to profit. FAIR share, not the near-slavery the RIAA can inflict on middling stars (and so we've come full circle).
Or, more accurately, a "right" with no government-backed means of enforcement is no right at all.
Even rights to real estate and other tangible property only exists because there is something to enforce it with. In some societies, people enforce these rights with their own private armies. In modern Western societies we arrest trespassers. In societies where land is owned in common or not at all, the concept of "trespass on private land" has no meaning.
I'm not saying private property is a bad thing, I am saying that the concept is only as good as its enforcement, and when and whether it should exist or be enforced is something ultimately for the people to decide.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
1. It bugs me that Google had to settle in the first place. Google shouldn't need permission to scan books for archival purposes, provided those copies aren't distributed to the public. Furthermore, allowing the public to search these archives should be treated as fair use.
2. Insofar as the plaintiffs raise legitimate points concerning the use of scanned material, this settlement should not grant Google an imploed license to the works of those who don't explicitly opt-in, but the class action settlement is such that you have to opt out. This is bad. No third party should ever have the power to license my works to another party without my explicit say so. That's an exclusive right granted to me as an author.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Ye would feel differently if, after you finish writing a beautiful program, your employer said "thanks" and took it without paying you. What you are doing when you take an electronic copy of a book without payment is no different.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Nope. You're just making them work without pay for their creations.
I didn't 'make' them do anything.
How would you like to spend time creating a beautiful piece of programming & your employer just says "thanks" and takes it w/o paying you?
Your right that would suck. Fortunately I neatly avoid this by requiring that I be paid in regular chunks throughout development, and if the payments were to cease I would cease handing over code. It works quite nicely.
They worked without pay from me, too, but they still created.
New idea! Just stop giving them subsidies! Then you don't have to regulate them.
The government can't save you.