I continue to fail to understand why anybody but Google's competitors are up in arms about this now. Google scanned a bunch of books - entered a gray area in "Fair Use", was taken to court, _and then came to out-of-court settlement_.
Amazon is free to negotiate the same settlement with the book publishers.
Google is making available a sizable number of _out of print_ books - that is, those books that can not be purchased from Amazon - and, here is the important thing - _Only with the permission of the rights holders._
The only real major take away for Google are the "Orphan" works - that is those books who no copyright holder can be found for and are out-of-print.
Does anyone out there who is not a competitor of Google see this as a bad thing?
I don't have knowledge of the specifics of the case but I believe Google only have the permission of an organisation representing authors, not the authors themselves.
I can get hooked in a book then on the left is a link to Amazon for me to buy it... I think this is potentially more beneficial to Amazon then threatening.
Amazon is free to negotiate the same settlement with the book publishers.
Google is making available a sizable number of _out of print_ books - that is, those books that can not be purchased from Amazon - and, here is the important thing - _Only with the permission of the rights holders._
The only real major take away for Google are the "Orphan" works - that is those books who no copyright holder can be found for and are out-of-print.
Does anyone out there who is not a competitor of Google see this as a bad thing?