Google rankles copyright holders with unauthorised indexing

vbimport
#1

I just posted the article Google rankles copyright holders with unauthorised indexing.

 Google  has for the past several months been busy scanning the contents of books, any books, in order  to add them to it's indexing engine. But having recently been struck by  a...

Read the full article here:  [http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/10727-Google-rankles-copyright-holders-with-unauthorised-indexing.html](http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/10727-Google-rankles-copyright-holders-with-unauthorised-indexing.html)

Feel free to add your comments below. 

Please note that the reactions from the complete site will be synched below.
#2

Google’s effort strikes me as an amazing humanitarian effort. The ability to search for terms and learn that those terms appear in books will be a boon to human progress – even if one then has to track down a copy of the book and buy it to actually see the whole text. If I were an author or a publisher, however, I’d want to have a say as to which edition of my book was being scanned. First editions usually have typos which are corrected in later editions; sometimes paperback editions contain new introductions; some editions are illustrated and some are not; even cover art changes. Ideally, someone “in the know” would know which edition of every book in existence was the perfect edition to be scanned into this archive. But let’s face it - publishers don’t have time or resources to do anything but pump their current releases, and authors aren’t always alive anymore. So kudos to Google for doing what they can.

#3

I’ve spent the last hour reading up on this Google effort, and sampling the beta service, and I remain amazed. I’ve also learned that when different editions of a book exist, they try to scan the latest edition. What they’re essentially doing is making a virtual library, where you can browse through a couple of pages of any book, and every book is indexed. This is what our tax money should be going to. This is what the Library of Congress should have been doing.

#4

I understand the concern of the libraries and authors. The problem seems to be that whenever a company becomes large enough, they become arrogant and think they can do whatever they want without asking for permission, and many times their products are inferior too. Just look at Microsoft and their buggy products, Intel and their CPU which is slower than AMD, Google which search results produces up to 90% junk/ spam pages.

#5

Interesting, here we have an industry where all US publishing houses who are now global, who trace their lineage back to the 17th and 18th century, made a fortune in reproducing european books without paying the authors or publishers one cent. Now they take umbrage at getting free additional publicity, and they continually seek to deliberately curtail users rights. Well Gordon G is right “Greed is Good”

#6

I doubt anyone would sit in front of a screen to read a book that would have bought it to begin with. However, it is more likely someone would find a book they want to read and then buy a copy.

#7

Allow google to scan, they already scan our searches and sell them. WTF is up with that? :B