
Amazon: Google book deal possibly illegal, definitely bad - soundsop
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/amazon-google-book-deal-possibly-illegal-definitely-bad.ars
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puredemo
Going to have to go with Amazon on this one. Why should Google simply be
allowed to unilaterally disregard all copyright claims?

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patio11
Google's approach to copyright has been, since day one, "Our engineers are
faster than your lawyers, and scale better, too."

Question: is making a copy of every page on the Internet, and then data mining
the link graph (and other information) to commercially exploit it, industrial
scale copyright violation?

Answer: Maybe! However, it will take years for that question to be resolved in
your favor in court, and by then we'll be the world's most influential
Internet company, you'll still just be some sap with a web page. After we're a
billion dollar company, if you disagree with the way we do business, you can
just opt out of being findable by the customers we gained using your data.

P.S. If you opt out, and somebody reprints your content on their site next to
AdSense ads... well, rest assured that if you send us a DMCA notice we'll
treat it with the all the care and responsiveness that Google's paying
customers receive.

Question: Do we owe you for the profits we got from those AdSense ads?

Answer: Maybe! However, it will take years for that question to be resolved in
your favor in court, and the effort will cost you many thousands of dollars in
legal fees to recoup far less in damages. You will not win a judgment of
willful infringement because we'll just blame it on the computer. We can't be
expected to check every result, naturally -- there are only 10,000 of us and
even if we spent all day every day policing abuses of our system it would
never be enough. So really, you should just suck it up and let us keep the
money. That's what everyone else does: we have the numbers to prove it.

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nostrademons
That's been the business model of nearly every successful startup, and several
unsuccessful ones:

Q[Facebook]: Isn't asking every teenager and 20-something to provide all their
personal details, and then selling that to advertising partners, a massive
privacy violation?

A: Maybe! However, it will take years for that question to be resolved, and in
the meantime every teenager and 20-something will happily provide those
details so they can throw sheep at each other (and more importantly, hook up).
You are, of course, welcome to not use FaceBook, but then your friends will
stop talking to you and you will never get laid.

Q[Youtube]: Isn't allowing anyone to upload video in seconds going to
encourage massive copyright violation of all videos ever made?

A: Maybe! However, it will take years for that question to be resolved in your
favor in court. And Google over there has a vested interest in making certain
that it will not be resolved in your favor. So before that happens, they will
buy us for exorbitant amounts of money and sic their exorbitantly-priced
lawyers on you.

Q[Napster]: Isn't providing a peer-to-peer music service just a way to
encourage massive copyright violation?

A: Maybe! However, it will take years for that question to be resolved in your
favor in court, and by then we'll be the world's most influential Internet
company, and you'll still just be some sap with a web page. After we're a
billion dollar company...oh shit, your lawyers are faster than we thought.

Q[Craigslist]: Isn't an anonymous classified-ads website just going to be a
haven for prostitutes to pick up clients?

A: Maybe! However, chances are that whatever judge you get uses those
prostitutes' services, because he is not on FaceBook and hence doesn't get
laid. Case dismissed.

~~~
patio11
_After we're a billion dollar company...oh shit, your lawyers are faster than
we thought._

Thank you, I needed a good belly laugh today.

