Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Google's Expansion intio Books

looks like google is having a bit of trouble over indexing books out of libraries. i am most interested in the statement in the story:

But Mr. Aiken said that offer turned longstanding precedents in copyright law upside down, requiring owners to pre-emptively protect rights rather than requiring a user to gain approval for use of a copyrighted work.
i think people shouldn't be exploited by default, they should be protected by default. the author's have a lot more to loose in many cases than gain in terms of being on google. many non-fiction books used for researched aren't read though; rather quote are selected out and small sections or chapters read. the books are priced the way they are because people don't have them sitting on their shelves and one could argue if parts of the books are distributed free on the internet even less libraries will have them.

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