Slashdot Mirror
DoJ Recommends NY Court Reject Google Book Deal
eldavojohn writes "The BBC and others are reporting on the US Department of Justice's recommendation to a New York court that they reject the Google book deal. The deal has received considerable attention, but for the most part it has been negative."
Summary: OMG searchable books! Think of the copyright holders!
This is only a good thing if it leads to a better arrangement. The google book deal is not ideal, but at least it gets the books out there. If as a result of this deal being struck down we have copyright reform (not likely, since at the moment people dying of lack of health care is a significantly bigger issue), then it is good. If as a result of this deal being struck down, a better deal is negotiated with Google (which is possible), then it will still not be ideal. If as a result of this deal being struck down, nothing ends up happening, which is possible, it would be worse for the world.
Qxe4
Lets just abolish copyright and eliminate this problem altogether.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
If the settlement was "any other company may also have the same rights under the same terms", it would be a VERY good deal.
But with the exclusivity, it is very bad. Without the exclusivity, someone else could take the time to do the scanning, and the sales. EG, Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo, or even a new startup.
But with the exclusivity, you give Google a monopoly over out-of-print books.
Test your net with Netalyzr
In other words, they're terrified of the prospect that Google is extending the doctrine of squatters' rights to intellectual property.
Well, that depends. How long have you been dead and your work out of print?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
And whilst we're making sensible linkages (when you think about it, actual existing people really equivalent to arbitrary legally constructed restrictions on free speech) like that I think that standardised egg sizes is the solution to the problem.
Just think of the pineapples.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
There must always be some large, slow-moving body (like a Mammoth, but preferably evil like a corporation or government) which We The People assault to prove our virtue if not virility.
Yesterday, Microsoft and George W. Bush; today, Google and Nancy Pelosi. So it goes.
Futurist Traditionalism
Is this the same DOJ that has been packed with "ex" Microsoft lawyers? The same Microsoft that's run by some Mussolini-lookalike who's supposed to have said, "I'm gonna fucking kill Google!"
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
This whole objection thing pi$$es me off! I have about 20 old books that I wrote years ago. This deal is worth anywhere from $ 1200 to $ 2000 that I could sure use but now everyone is weighing in to prevent that. I WANT my books included!
Doesn't the public hold the rights to the underlying language?
What if we just rescind your license to the words?
Oh, and the society you got your ideas and education from would like their cultural memes back as well.
You didn't create your work out of a void. Without the supporting culture, you would be little more than a quick witted animal. Certainly, with no one educating you, you would not have produced anything. Where is your payment back to the thousands of people who influenced you?
The very culture that produced you granted you a reasonable amount of time to control your cultural contribution. They did this to encourage you to contribute back to that culture. Unless you have a cure for cancer, face it, your contribution likely amounts to very little. The culture can probably do without it.
Copyright is not some sort of natural or God-given right. It;'s a right granted by "the people" for *their* immediate benefit. Not yours. "The people" want to encourage people to share. The operative work: "SHARE". This is how a culture progresses.
Let's just say that I don't run Windows for personal use even in a VM. It's just got nothing I need in it. And with very rare exceptions I don't buy software even for Linux. Sometime I do it just to encourage the vendor - RedHat, WordPerfect, X-Plane, Unreal Tournament 2003, World of Warcraft are I think the only ones (WOW under wine). In each case I tried the stuff for a few days and binned it.
I don't steal the stuff - it's just been many years since there wasn't a free and open solution for something I wanted to do with a PC. In Linux the office packages are free. The 3d modeller is free. The photo editors are free. The video editors, mail clients, mail servers, web servers, scripting languages, programming editors, version control, iSCSI SAN solution, PC Imaging solution, management infrastructure, GIS, CRM, CMS - they're all free. There's even free antivirus (what for, I don't know), and free Linux Genuine Advantage for recent emigrees who need it for nostalgia. Any tool I need is a few clicks away, and the trouble isn't in getting stuff that's freely given, it's choosing the right tool from the diverse selection offered. In almost every case the stuff is at a level commercial software might come to in a few years (Inkscape?). In some few cases there are outstanding commercial apps that are more feature rich, but they've evolved so far beyond my needs that they're difficult to learn and use and I'm better off with something simple that just does the job I want do without getting in my way.
That Windows doesn't have anything for me should be enough, but there's more... I have rather peculiar computing needs. I try a lot of platforms and I like my desktop image to stay fairly stable. In the past I've take a system image of this dual Xeon workstation and put it on by bl460c and my Atom demo board and my Via Mini-ITX board and a couple laptops too. Next month I might want to put it on the AMD quad core I'm buying. With linux I can do that as a practical matter, and it's fair game for licensing as well. With Windows that's a both a no-go and a no-no.
Given your comments here - which seem informed, educated and well though out, but with a strong pro-windows and anti mac & linux bias, with a specialization in 3d graphics rendering perhaps - I'm unlikely to be interested in your software. You can keep your precious bits. I'm fine, thanks.
Why I want copyright abolished has nothing to do with your precious bits any more than it does Michael Jackson or Inglourious Basterds. It has to do with Jazz and Rock and Roll, 1984 and Farenheit 451. It has to do with the social contract of copyright - you get protection for a short time, in exchange for which you are encouraged to create - but the works after a time pass into the culture as all intellectual endeavors must if we are to have the progress which is copyright's purpose . Your works, creative and inventive as they might be, were not built in a vacuum. You stood on the shoulders of giants that went before you. To make copyright eternal - either for code or for artists is to deprive my children not just of the privilege of extending your work, but even to stand where you stood when you did your work so they can make their own contributions to the pool of knowledge. It is to steal from them of their very culture. It's wrong and evil.
Copyright as it is is broken. It should be abolished.
Help stamp out iliturcy.