“A seven-year battle between Google and the publishing industry is drawing to an end,” Julianne Pepitone reports for CNNMoney.
“The fight is over Google’s creation of a digital library that it hopes will eventually house every book ever published,” Pepitone reports. ” Google announced the project in late 2004 and began scanning books — with the cooperation of several major libraries — but it skipped a step: getting a green light from the authors and publishers whose books were being scanned. Their trade groups filed a pair of lawsuits against Google in 2005.”
Pepitone reports, “On Thursday, AAP announced a new settlement deal with Google. The agreement is twofold: It deals with the millions of books that Google has already scanned, and also sets the rules for digitizing in the future. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but it appears that publishers were compensated for the books that Google has already scanned. Publishers can also choose to remove books that have already been digitized. Going forward, publishers will have to opt in and expressly strike individual deals with Google to digitize their book catalogs.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Rainy Day” for the heads up.]
Google’s motto:
Damn the intellectual property laws
(and their little dog lawyers too),
full speed ahead.
… and if they scream later we will shut their mouths with a couple of millions of bucks
As an owner of intellectual property, this is greatly disturbing. The creator’s control over copyright is diminished with the “opt out” function of this agreement.
How so? You don’t want your book in their library you opt out. How are your rights diminished?
Our company works consistently in rights management issues, mainly in the privacy area. Any use of material that is not explicitly “opt in” puts the onus for discovery and refusal on the rights hop,der. The due diligence necessary to call for an “opt out” claim is put squarely on the owner of that right. That’s not how property rights work in the USA. It’s akin to you using my product for your own good until I discover your use and restrict you. In the interim, you enjoy the fruits of my labor and put the policing responsibility on me.
Yeah where are fans screaming bloody murder that its so unfair Google can’t do whatever the hell they want? That publishers aren’t “innovative” and all they are doing is copying words other people invented.
They do want to say that – but even they realize how retarded it would sound.
Google’s attack on IP should worry us all. They steal iOS and books and ‘give’ it away free while charging advertisers to pay for consumers using the stolen material. Thief doesn’t begin to describe it. We need a new word for it . . . oh yeah, I forgot, the word is Google.
So, “google it” will no longer mean “search the web for it”
From now on it will mean “furtively obtain personal information, then sell it to the highest bidder while deceitfully proclaiming that everything good should be free”
A deal with the devil. Publishers get a quick fix now, and throw future authors under the bus.
I think I will come to your house and steal your stuff.
Let me know it you want to opt out.