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Google Book Search Settlement Receiving Criticism
waderoush writes "While James Gleick, Lawrence Lessig, and other pundits have reacted positively to this week's proposed settlement of the publishing industry's lawsuit against Google over the Google Book Search project, a deeper study of the agreement turns up some worrisome provisions that could make online access to books much more costly and difficult than it needs to be. Harvard University's libraries, for example, declined to endorse the settlement over concerns that it provides no mechanism for keeping the cost of access to books reasonable. And while the parties to the settlement have made much of the clause providing public libraries with free full-text access to Google's database of over 7 million out-of-print books, Xconomy has a post pointing out that this access is restricted to exactly one Google terminal per library. So, you can read books for free — as long as you're the first person to get to your public library's computer room in the morning."
Many libraries either have the CDROMs mounted on a disc changer, or the content served out from a network share. They have special licensing terms for libraries to allow them to do this. Some like ProQuest or EBSCO provide that licensing at reduced cost or sometimes even no charge for certain libraries, in the name of being 'good corporate citizens'.
(I have two friends who are both librarians)
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Agreed, but his logic is incredibly faulty just the same, and there may actually be people who think like that.
"Don't BE evil" is not the same as "don't DO evil". And at any rate, Pontiac's motto used to be "we build excitement" when in fact what they actually built was cars.
Corporate mottos are meaningless to anyone but an idiot, Google's included (as much as I like their search engine).
Free Martian Whores!
I think it will become clear that the public access terminals are a tiny part of the program as it evolves. What most readers will see will be a tremendous expansion their ability to browse, consult, and even read books online--particularly the huge reservoir of books that are still copyrighted but out of print.
It won't always be free, so some will always complain. Still ...
I'm really not a pundit, but an author. I have an interest. I'm on the board of the Authors Guild, and worked hard on this, so you may take what I say with the appropriate grain of salt. But I can tell you that everyone involved, whatever their differences, cared profoundly about readers above all.
FTA:
If you read the agreement, you'll see that it restricts each public library to exactly one Google terminal. Tens of millions of books online-but at any given moment, no more than 16,543 people are allowed to read them without paying. (That's how many public libraries and branches there are in the United States, according to the American Library Association-one for every 18,500 Americans.)
I'm not sure what the procedure is for turning your house into a public library, but I suspect that you're SOL - Especially if you're not willing to open up to the public.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Used books exist.
Many books go out of print only to be reprinted later, printed in different countries (thus making money on it, so fuck your "definition") for a while while the local used market dries up, or added to a compilation or collection that is in progress and will be printed later.
If the book comes back into print it's not out of print then is it you dumb piece of shit.
Clearly the OP wasn't talking about books that are between print runs or between editions but don't let that stop you from being a clueless fucking troll.
Shove a knife up your ass, dick eater.
And if the publisher hasn't yet decided whether to reprint, which is probably the most common case? Gp, pass the AC that knife, it seems it will be him that needs it, not you.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?