Anyone who is not up on the current issues involving copyrights, file-sharing, and the latest gaffs-- oh I mean laws-- that the politicians in Washington D.C. are busy passing really ought to get themselves over to http://www.eff.org to familiarize themselves with the issues. For those who are up on these issues, below are portions of an article from CBC news that might be of interest.
I support Google in this particular project. Fair Use Laws would allow Google to electronically publish excerpts of copyright-protected works and purchasing information. The fact that Google plans to scan first and sort later is of no concern to me. Nor is the worry about how the scanning of any copyrighted books will be "used in the future."
~radical sapphoq
[The portions of article appearing below were lifted as they appear on the CBC news site.]
University of California joins Google's virtual library
Last Updated Wed, 09 Aug 2006 13:46:26 EDT
CBC Arts
The University of California is allowing Google's ambitious book-scanning project to access its academic libraries even as the venture fights allegations of copyright infringement.
The deal... is a major boost for popular search engine Google in its effort to convert millions of library books into digital form...
..."We think this is a pretty significant step forward," said Adam Smith, the group product manager overseeing Google's book-scanning initiative...
...The mammoth project, begun in 2004, is expected to take years to complete and could cost Google tens of millions of dollars.
...[Google] hopes the project will stock its search engine with unique material and increase traffic on the site...
Only "public domain" books no longer protected by copyright will appear on the site in their full form. Google hopes to include excerpts and purchasing information for copyright-protected books in what it calls a "fair use" approach.
But publishers and authors are angry that despite the restrictions Google still intends to scan the books in their entirety, giving them access to copyrighted material.
The U.S. Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, the two trade groups suing Google...
...Another group representing not-for-profit publishers was also disappointed the university has joined the project.
"We are concerned and we aren't happy," said Nick Evans, member services manager for the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers.
"There are no guarantees how this information might be used in the future." ...
...Another form of opposition came from abroad in 2005 when European academics and politicians proposed an alternative project to counter what they feared would be Google's U.S.-centric index...
[for full article, please click on the link embedded in this post's title]
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