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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."
Lets just reform copyright law and eliminate this problem altogether.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
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
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.
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Well, that depends. How long have you been dead and your work out of print?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
In the case of authors I know, they are neither dead nor are there works out of print. But as their works were in print outside of the U.S. (though orderable online, that is how the works got into the libraries to be scanned), the Google settlement treated them as out of print, so Google was going to treat their books as orphaned works. I can understand the enthusiasm inside the U.S. for the deal (we can take everything published elsewhere in the world and take control of it), but the DOJ has to respect the copyright of other countries, as per the Berne convention. I wouldn't be surprised if a final result is based off the Google Partners program, which is the existing Google book search system where Google actually asks the authors permission. Asking people's permission solves all kinds of problems, and isn't normally considered evil. While it would still leave the genuinely orphaned works a problem, that is a problem created by stupid copyright extensions, and is ultimately solvable only by copyright reform.
That's why it's a recommendation.
MRSH-Recording device, corned beef sandwich with kraut, seafaring bird, and the foamy top of a beverage.
Because it's simple:
Copyright law is an agreement between "the people" (aka the government) and you. The first part of the agreement is that you enjoy protection and exclusive rights to copy and distribute. The second part of the agreement, that copyright holders often forget about, ignore or otherwise disregard, is that in exchange for said protection, the works would be released into the public domain upon expiry of the term of protection.
Here's the problem. The agreement is now lasting longer than the media it is distributed upon. This makes the works for which the people offered you copyright protection, unavailable to the people by the time the agreement expires thereby depriving the people of their public domain works and in fact the cultural and historical value of the works.
By having it available in digital archives, there is an increased chance that the works will still be available whenever the term of the copyright protection agreement has ended.