We asked for your thoughts on the AAP/Google Print lawsuit, and one agent sent us the following observations:
“I find it troubling that Google scanned these library books without checking ahead of time with the copyright holder. I’m sure many of these books are out of print or in the public domain–but a large portion are not.
I know that right now, Google is planning on keeping these books in a search engine where only a portion that is fair use will be visible (meaning, I believe, less than 50 words). My concern is for the future–what’s the plan for these scans in five years? Will it be still fair use viewing? Or will Google have decided to go into e-books for themselves?
I’m aware that arguing with someone fluent in IT issues about the violation of copyright that happens when one makes an unauthorized electronic file of a book is often pointless. It has been pointed out to me that every email I send is replicated multiple times along its trip to its recipient. But with a copyright protected work, I feel caution is the way to go–even though that’s very illogical to some.”
Meanwhile, over at if:book, Ben Vershbow sees the arrival of Google Print as an event with civilization-shaking consequences: “The shift from oral to written language froze speech into stable strings that could be transmitted and stored over distance and time. This change not only affected the modes of communication, it dramatically refigured the cognitive makeup of human beings… The digital takes the freezing medium of text and throws it back into fluidity. Like the melting of polar ice caps, it unsettles equilibriums, changes weather patterns. It is a lot to adjust to, and we wonder if our great-great-grandchildren will literally think differently from us.”
If you’ve got an opinion, we’ve got plenty of room for it…