Microsoft Blasts Google Book Deal

eldavojohn writes "With authors, scholars, the DoJ and publishers ripping apart the Google book deal, it's Microsoft's turn. They're claiming it's frankly an illegal 'joint venture' and not a settlement. According to ZDNet, Microsoft's four complaints against the deal are: 1) Future infringements are covered by the settlement, affecting the exclusive rights of absent class members for the life of their copyrights. 2) The deal gives away to Google vast rights that were not contested in the underlying litigation. The lawsuits dealt with Google's displaying brief excerpts. Instead of compromising on that infringement, the parties instead agreed to give away the rights to display entire books. 3) The publishers who negotiated this deal each have undisclosed side deals with Google, which will likely give them better terms than the class will get. 4) The publishers plan to exclude their own works from the deal. You might recall over a year ago Microsoft's own scanning effort died."

Comments

Re:Haul down the competition

[poetmatt]

Not really spot on at all, the stuff that google is doing is actually a pretty good thing. Right now, they cannot display whole books.

With the settlement, you can read books in their entirety online instead of getting a "this is the maximum amount of views" bullshit a page or two into a book.

Try to read into the understanding of what is going on and not accepting that all viewpoints are factual. Same people rising up the anti google machine are behind the anti healthcare machine.

Re:One small problem: Money.

[Rockoon]

Your "rights" over your own works should END the moment you view them as NOT WORTH PUBLISHING ANYMORE.

Who says I view them as not worth publishing 'anymore'?

Maybe I just view them as not worth publishing this year.

My book, my rights, my marketing strategy. Fuck off, thief.