I'm ok with this, as long as they investigate the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers as well.
Very good point, phantomfive: if the Authors Guild and the American Publishers Association had refrained from belatedly emulating the failed strategy of the music and video producers with their class action, then Google would have had to use the "fair use" argument. Which means that anyone else could have used the same argument to offer the same works, and there would be no monopoly issue.
Right-holders on "non commercially available copyrighted works" could still have asked Google or whoever else to withdraw these works if they thought they had commercial potential. But works whose right-holders couldn't be found (real orphan works) or didn't care would have become available again - without any of the silly copy- and print-restriction tech measures (that don't work anyway) imposed by the AG and the APA in the settlement.
If you put "hotmail" in google, the first hit you get is "Sign-in Access Error" corresponding to www.hotmail.com
Hotmail has been working dismally for a long time, and is clogging up altogether now. S it's big corporation's inefficiency rather than censorship, maybe.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm ok with this, as long as they investigate the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers as well.
Very good point, phantomfive: if the Authors Guild and the American Publishers Association had refrained from belatedly emulating the failed strategy of the music and video producers with their class action, then Google would have had to use the "fair use" argument. Which means that anyone else could have used the same argument to offer the same works, and there would be no monopoly issue.
Right-holders on "non commercially available copyrighted works" could still have asked Google or whoever else to withdraw these works if they thought they had commercial potential. But works whose right-holders couldn't be found (real orphan works) or didn't care would have become available again - without any of the silly copy- and print-restriction tech measures (that don't work anyway) imposed by the AG and the APA in the settlement.
If you put "hotmail" in google, the first hit you get is "Sign-in Access Error" corresponding to www.hotmail.com Hotmail has been working dismally for a long time, and is clogging up altogether now. S it's big corporation's inefficiency rather than censorship, maybe.