12 Mar 2007
Perspective on a current issue
Seems there’s uproar on account of the AAP suing Google for scanning books from libraries. Publishers insist on an opt-in approach, while Google insists that scanning and indexing is fair use, and that publishers can opt out.
Those who are for Google’s approach comment that due to costs most of the work created during the 20th century is not undergoing digitization and that Google’s project will help reduce the amount of creative work that is lost (considering whatever is not on the net is ignored by a majority of the population in this day and age).
Those who are against say that Google is consistently violating copyright and thus undermining incentives to create.
Tim O’reilly has a great post on the matter, where he defends Google and crushes the opposition with some very good arguments. As O’reilly notes, there are 32,000,000 books out of print, existing only in libraries. Digitizing those books and making them available on the web can only create demand (which will put money into the hands of publishers and authors – assuming the authors are not dead).
Trying to stop this project is just another stupid (yes, plain stupid) move by blind bureaucrats that are always 5 steps behind the obvious evolution of society. It truly pisses me off.
However, copyright and economics are not the real issue here. Seeing as every single creation today is originally created in digital form this is a problem that will cancel itself out very quickly. In the coming centuries billions upon billions of creations will come to life. All of them will be catalogued and indexed in digital form (or whatever future technology is used by then). The 20th century’s legacy will be but a fraction of that work.
We should be talking about the responsibility to preserve our creations for future generations.
Seems there’s uproar on account of the AAP suing Google for scanning books from libraries. Publishers insist on an opt-in approach, while Google insists that scanning and indexing is fair use, and that publishers can opt out.
Those who are for Google’s approach comment that due to costs most of the work created during the 20th century is not undergoing digitization and that Google’s project will help reduce the amount of creative work that is lost (considering whatever is not on the net is ignored by a majority of the population in this day and age).
Those who are against say that Google is consistently violating copyright and thus undermining incentives to create.
Tim O’reilly has a great post on the matter, where he defends Google and crushes the opposition with some very good arguments. As O’reilly notes, there are 32,000,000 books out of print, existing only in libraries. Digitizing those books and making them available on the web can only create demand (which will put money into the hands of publishers and authors – assuming the authors are not dead).
Trying to stop this project is just another stupid (yes, plain stupid) move by blind bureaucrats that are always 5 steps behind the obvious evolution of society. It truly pisses me off.
However, copyright and economics are not the real issue here. Seeing as every single creation today is originally created in digital form this is a problem that will cancel itself out very quickly. In the coming centuries billions upon billions of creations will come to life. All of them will be catalogued and indexed in digital form (or whatever future technology is used by then). The 20th century’s legacy will be but a fraction of that work.
We should be talking about the responsibility to preserve our creations for future generations.
מאת shamshins נושאים 
Copyright, Google, Search, Trends 
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