Surf Libararies

CAN WE SURF THE LIBRARIES?

-Publishers stop Google's plan to put libraries online.

is planning to put the books from University of Michigan, Harvard and Stanford onto carts and delivering them into the maw of scanners, scan them and make digital copies. Therefore, net surfers like us are able to search most of the text in Google.com. It indicates that we can surf the libraries in front of the computer instead of physically ramble over them. An associate provost at Michigan, James Hilton, is appreciate with its project and thinks the ability to browse books online is nothing short of world changing. However, the plan doesn't favour everyone.88888888888888888888888888888888

Legal Action

Last week, the Association of American Publishers (AAP), mainly the five major publishers, took Google to the New York federal court to stop the company's proposal, they sued since they believed that:888888888888........

its action is a breach of massive copyright.

the plan is trampling their rights.

the law doesn't say that it is allowed to take their stuff because it's good to humanity.

Destruction of the plan

Google is very enthusiasm about the project and is uneasy about the charge, because:88888888888888888

it disturbs its progressive plans for expansion included making copies of videos, photos and news articles to add to its hunky search index.

it does not fall within the company's mission: "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

it wants to earn more ad. dollars. (there are agreement between the book scanning company and the institutions)

In fact, Google has gazed the estimated 30 million books for years and has made its first try in late 2003 with the program Google Print. With the permission of book publishers, Google added in-print, copy righted works to its database, which only take a few percent of all books. The question is: "How would a large company likes Google satisfy with only a few percentages?" "It never!" This time, consequently, Google hadn't asked for permission from the publishers, its points are:888888888888888888

it serves up sentences of protected works to Web searchers, which is considers legal under the 'fair use' provision of the 1976 Copyright Act

it agreed to allow publishers themselves to withdraw specific books from the search index.

Publishers don't even know who owns the rights to their older books.

Suggested Alternatives

The publishers looked out every step for the projects from the beginning. The AAP has invited the CEO of Google to a meeting in early July and they suggested:

Google to stop the scanning of copyrighted works until the 1st of Nov.

digital copies to be stored on publisher's server instead of Google's. REJECTED

the global database of ISBN numbers should be renewed.

The meeting came to nothing because the second suggestion has been rejected. "The idea behind making an index that is comprehensive is defeated if you go door to door to ask permission only from the people whose rights you can identify," Google senior counsel Alex Macgillivray argued.88888888888888888888888888888888888888

Who will be the vanquisher?

Who knows? Since it is so complicated to judge, it will mainly depend on the legal interpretation of fair use, which factors in whether:

copying is for Economic use.

it harms the potential market of the copy-righted work.

To my surprise, many lawyers believe that Google is confronted with a complex situation and some say that they may have to pay for tens of thousands of dollars for each copyrighted pieces.Gosh!88888888888888888888

Responsibility

After all, as a well educated class among the society, I suppose it is our responsibility to instill moral values into others. The government, on the other hand, should revise the existing legal framework of this issue.888

CAN WE SURF THE LIBRARIES?

-Publishers stop Google's plan to put libraries online.

is planning to put the books from University of Michigan, Harvard and Stanford onto carts and delivering them into the maw of scanners, scan them and make digital copies. Therefore, net surfers like us are able to search most of the text in Google.com. It indicates that we can surf the libraries in front of the computer instead of physically ramble over them. An associate provost at Michigan, James Hilton, is appreciate with its project and thinks the ability to browse books online is nothing short of world changing. However, the plan doesn't favour everyone.88888888888888888888888888888888

Legal Action

Last week, the Association of American Publishers (AAP), mainly the five major publishers, took Google to the New York federal court to stop the