Hi Mike
I'm not sure if I have such a problem with this. It must have cost
Google a fortune to scan the stuff in, so they deserve some
recognition. That, to me, justifies the "Digitized by Google" idea.
Exclusive rights for commerical use is also fair, but it should be for
a limited period, as discussed by Lessig in the book.
As for non-commerical use, I don't know how you define that in this
case. A non-commercial search engine is an interesting idea, but are
there any? How do they pay for all the hardware and bandwidth
required?
The important point to me here is that the contract does not preclude
rescanning of the books at a later time. So if someone else wants to
do the same thing later on, they can. But for now Google is paying, so
they get to decide what happens to the digital data.
I'm sounding very pro-Google right now, but I'm really not such a huge
fan. Just a realist. I'd much rather see a student driven project to
scan and make available all texts where the copyrights have lapsed or
permit copying.
Ciao,
Richard
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