You have a good point. With Google doing Google Print there could be both benefits to authors (more sales of books due to exposure on Google Print) and drawbacks (there may be cases when Google Print customers opt to just view Google Print when they would have otherwise purchased the book).
A good business strategy for Google may be to handle both of those points carefully. To increase the positives for authors (and Google themselves) they may facilitate the purchase of a book after viewing snippets on Google Print by linking to Amazon, or another vendor who carries the book. To mitigate the concern authors have over Google Print replacing sales, Google may choose to limit the amount of text a user can see for a particular book.
They may already have plans for both -- I haven't found anything on length of snippets, # snippets viewable per user, etc. It sounds like the potential of Google Print could be disasterous for authors and creativity if everyone were to go to Google Print instead of a bookstore for books; however, it also could be a boon for authors and open up a whole new world of information for Google Print users.
In short, they need to address those concerns, communicate their efforts to the public -- particularily authors and publishers -- and do their best to avoid and violation of copyright law to begin with.
Re:You are confusing two issues
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Reining in Google
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I agree. It seems that many people are missing the point that Google would now be making money off books when the writers of the books should be. If Google would like to provide this service -- and it would be a great service to its users -- they need to pay royalties.
I wish people would see the middle ground -- that Google pay royalties. Instead, many are taking the extreme and saying that those who are seeking to protect authors are effectively preventing a great service to the world's population from being made available. The fact that Google wants to provide this type of service is great; however, they need to share the wealth with those whose content they are using.
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You have a good point. With Google doing Google Print there could be both benefits to authors (more sales of books due to exposure on Google Print) and drawbacks (there may be cases when Google Print customers opt to just view Google Print when they would have otherwise purchased the book).
A good business strategy for Google may be to handle both of those points carefully. To increase the positives for authors (and Google themselves) they may facilitate the purchase of a book after viewing snippets on Google Print by linking to Amazon, or another vendor who carries the book. To mitigate the concern authors have over Google Print replacing sales, Google may choose to limit the amount of text a user can see for a particular book.
They may already have plans for both -- I haven't found anything on length of snippets, # snippets viewable per user, etc. It sounds like the potential of Google Print could be disasterous for authors and creativity if everyone were to go to Google Print instead of a bookstore for books; however, it also could be a boon for authors and open up a whole new world of information for Google Print users.
In short, they need to address those concerns, communicate their efforts to the public -- particularily authors and publishers -- and do their best to avoid and violation of copyright law to begin with.
I agree. It seems that many people are missing the point that Google would now be making money off books when the writers of the books should be. If Google would like to provide this service -- and it would be a great service to its users -- they need to pay royalties. I wish people would see the middle ground -- that Google pay royalties. Instead, many are taking the extreme and saying that those who are seeking to protect authors are effectively preventing a great service to the world's population from being made available. The fact that Google wants to provide this type of service is great; however, they need to share the wealth with those whose content they are using.