The Authors Guild, along with a former US poet laureate, is suing Google for copyright infringement. Google operates two programs intended to incorporate print material into its search index, one of which, the Google Print for Libraries program, is targeted by the suit.
Google has been scanning the collections at five libraries, bypassing the authors - who of course hold the copyright on their works - and including selections in search results. "This is a plain and brazen violation of copyright law. It's not up to Google or anyone other than the authors, the rightful owners of these copyrights, to decide whether and how their works will be copied," Authors Guild president Nick Taylor said in a statement.
News source: The Register
Google has been scanning the collections at five libraries, bypassing the authors - who of course hold the copyright on their works - and including selections in search results. "This is a plain and brazen violation of copyright law. It's not up to Google or anyone other than the authors, the rightful owners of these copyrights, to decide whether and how their works will be copied," Authors Guild president Nick Taylor said in a statement.
News source: The Register
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n00b authors :/
whoa that just blew me away, scanning copyrighted books without permission
Last edited by 78314 on 21 Sep 2005 - 17:28
Beats going to the library and going through the Dewey Decimal System manually, opening and reading each page of every book to find what you are looking for.
I guess it will be up to the courts to decide. <sarcasm> At least it is in good hands </sarcasm>
Although I'm suprised google hasn't been sued yet for recording financial transactions.
Publish it on the internet maybe they might become recognised. They might sit there in the back of a library for years.
In fact they should think there selves lucky it is being digitally archived for future use by generations and generations and.. you get the point.
We will probably have to burn all the books for fuel in the end anyway.
Just my 2 pennies worth.
Sure, it'd be nice to have a huge, easily searchable database of books but as Google doesn't own the copyrights to any of the books it's not up to them to claim rights to do so.
This should be an opt-in system, whereas the copyright owners can give Google permission to archive selected texts.
I have a feeling that people think it's OK because it's Google, who can apparently do no wrong. If it was Microsoft scanning everyone’s books for inclusion in Encarta online, for example, I'm sure most people would be up in arms. The law is the law, and Google has to abide by it.
Similar to the way print copyrights work, you have to actually notify the reader that your work is copyrighted. On the internet, you similarly can instruct search engines not to index your site because it's copyrighted. I think the onus should be on the authors of those sites should take some measures to notify the search engines that some works are copyrighted, rather than jumping to lawsuits.
Where did you come up with such nonsense. Every single original work of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression is copyrighted the minute it is created, and does not need to be stated.
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