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WORTH READING google books
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 07:25:02 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: pam () ischool berkeley edu Date: May 23, 2009 2:40:46 AM EDT To: dave () farber net Subject: google books This responds to Mike Anderson and Thomas Lord.I agree with Mike Anderson that it is good for public access to knowledge (which is the constitutional purpose for having copyright law in the first
place) for Google to make orphan books available to the public. Many ofthese books are out of print, but the insight that Google had was that the
books might still be quite valuable to scholars especially even if the market for print versions was perceived to be too small to justify their republication. Digital copies are cheaper and with the improved search technologies, it is now easier for people looking for seemingly obscure books to find them. Where I diverge from Mike's perspective is in his assertion that it is fine for Google to be the only entity legally entitled to make orphanbooks available. It would be much better for other entities, such as the
Internet Archive and the Open Content Alliance, to be able to scan and make available these same books and to offer better access terms than Google will be likely to do in the absence of competition. The rightanswer to the orphan works problem is not for Google to have a monopoly on
them, but for Congress to pass orphan works legislation or for the Antitrust Division to give Google a nudge to license the orphan books toothers after the Book Search settlement confers on it a license to these
books. That would create competition that will avoid the perils of monopoly.As for Thomas's concern about libraries and the privileges that copyright law affords them to copy for preservation and similar purposes, it is fair
to observe that the copyright laws we have were drafted before thedevelopment of computing technologies and environments that are pervasive parts of our experience today. I commend Google and the Internet Archive
for taking initiative to scan books from major research libraries which the libraries themselves were too afraid to digitize. Of course authors and publishers should have the right not to have their books in the Book Search corpus or to profit from reuses of their books that remain in the corpus, but the Book Search settlement will result in monies collected from orphan works being shared with authors and publishers registered with the Book Rights Registry for books they did not write or publish and in which they own no copyrights. Pam Samuuelson UC Berkeley School of Law and of Information ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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- WORTH READING google books David Farber (May 23)