"Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon to fight Google book deal" http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Microsoft-Yahoo-Amazon-to-apf-3153317857.html?x=0&.v=4 I love being able to see parts of books on Google. It is a really useful feature. MSFT, AMZN and YHOO are trying to block it.
As much as you love being able to see parts of books on Google, I'm sure you must be in favor of competition in the digital book area...right? Somehow this factor didn't make it into your poll. Therefore I was unable to answer your poll. If you were Amazon and had made a large investment in Kindle, what would you have to say about it? Shouldn't any settlement seek to create some type of fair playing field for all the potential competitors. Is it really that important to you whether you read your book on Google, or on Yahoo, or on Amazon? OldTrader
Wouldn't that choice fall under, "No. This is very important that GOOG not do this." The difference is that what I see on GOOG is free, imcomplete, but way more than what I see on AMZN! All AMZN offers is the first three pages of a book and the table of contents. Not even close to entice me to buy a book. So at least for now, they seem to not intersect, imo. This could be a covert attempt by GOOG to corner the market, but boy I don't see it.
I have a small publishing label, hence I am somewhat familiar with this issue. Google was under a class action suit and has settled it where works under copyright were scanned and published on google books, obviously this is a NO NO.(it was without the consent of the authors/publishers). OTOH, what they are doing now can hardly be stopped by Amazon, Yahoo(?) or anyone else....
Google settled and gives monies to those who agree, other books may be public domain or not under legal copyright......
"Judge Rejects Googleâs Deal to Digitize Books" http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/technology/23google.html?hp
I suggest you view this video - it is about free culture... I think online reading, (Kindle, Nook, iBookstore OR Google's device) are all great. Reading online is the only way I read, I have bad eyesight and I hate glasses... Resurrecting some old books that were out of print by greedy, brick and mortar publishers and making them available for free or low cost is a benefit. Google is doing the right thing, IMHO. If they break the law they will fix that aspect and move on. Nothing can stop them, they are a 500-pound gorilla. To my knowledge the books they make available have the author/publisher's consent and/or are in the public domain! <iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/JWR6eiiBhf8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I was wrong. I did not follow the whole story. Apparently google deal was "loaded" and dangerous. A couple of points picked up by The Register http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/22/google_books_settlement_rejected/ which gives further pause for thought to those who believe Google is a benefactor: '...a deal that threatened to rewrite American copyright law and give Google exclusive rights to so-called orphaned works...' '...the deal "would give Google a de facto monopoly over unclaimed works"....' '... foreign copyright holders need not register with the US to maintain their rights stateside, but under the terms of Google's settlement, authors could not protect themselves from the settlement without explicitly registering....' Those who urge changes in copyright law should be careful whose banner they stand behind. Altruism is a rare beast anyway, and as proposed by Google it was very, very loaded. It is certainly true that there would be advantage in keeping works available; but in the days of POS and ebooks it does not need a voracious giant to put each work back on the market. Gutenberg Press already offers one truly generous way to do it; there are examples of more commercial approaches brought to this and other lists by individuals or small companies. Knowledge yes; de facto monopoly [Judge Chin's words] no.