

Google Book Search settlement gives Google a virtual monopoly over literature - anuraggoel
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/17/google-book-search-s-1.html

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nopinsight
I would rather have book search results available as fair use, instead of
through legal settlement. That would allow other companies to compete in this
area.

With this deal, Google's dominance in search engine market is even more secure
than it has been. We don't want yet another monopoly, even a purportedly
benevolent one.

To compensate Google for the cost of scanning all these books, perhaps the
publishers and author's guild should force Google to license the scanned
version to other companies at a 'fair' price, which they also need to agree
upon.

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jedc
The thing that strikes me about all this craziness over Google Book Search is
that Google did an extraordinary thing: they made significant progress toward
scanning every book ever printed. With great effort (and risk) comes great
reward. It would be a huge cost, but I don't see why another company doesn't
try to do the same thing.

The monopoly doesn't exist because Google is trying to force other people out;
it exists because no other company is willing to take the expense/risk to do
it themselves.

~~~
narag
Could any other company have done the same? Google is big, has a lot of
resources, public goodwill and instant echo in the media. Who else?

~~~
jedc
Amazon, Yahoo, and Microsoft all come to mind. Yahoo and Microsoft for
relevance to search, and Amazon as a bookseller. They're all big enough and
technically competent enough to do it, in my opinion.

~~~
narag
Indeed, But Microsoft is seen in... slightly less favorable light than Google.
Amazon's position on the other hand could be a drawback, not an advantage.
Such step could have made angry its providers.

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indiejade
_Google, in acceding to the Authors Guild's requests, have attained a legal
near-monopoly on searching and distributing the majority of books ever
published._

Incorrect grammar. Should read: "Google, in acceding to the Authors Guild's
requests, has attained a legal near-monopoly on searching and distributing the
majority of books ever published."

Company names should always be referred to in the singular object form, as in
"it", not "they" or "them".

Mr. Doctorow, is Boing Boing hiring any editors? ;)

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dchest
Not in British English. Though, he writes "Google alone has easy legal access"
later. Doctorow is Canadian, so he uses both :-)

~~~
pierrefar
Not really a British thing.

The University of Nottingham (which is most certainly British) has this in its
style guide: "similarly, use the company is rather than the company are" [1]

The Economist (a publication of a British company) has a style guide that has
this gem: "A government, a party, a company (whether Tesco or Marks and
Spencer) and a partnership (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill) are all it and take a
singular verb. So does a country, even if its name looks plural." [2]

[1] [http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/public-affairs/uon-style-
book/si...](http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/public-affairs/uon-style-
book/singular-plural.htm)

[2]
[http://www.economist.com/research/styleGuide/index.cfm?page=...](http://www.economist.com/research/styleGuide/index.cfm?page=805687)

~~~
indiejade
Dude, I agree with you, but who is dishing out the hatred? For the sake of
Pete, why have I been maliciously down-voted?

~~~
sho
Because people find useless pendantry an annnoying waste of time? The text is
on a third party site! What do you expect anyone here to do about it?

Mail the author if you feel so strongly about it. In your comments here it
would be better to respond to the meat of the argument presented, not any
minor grammatical errors it may or may not contain.

~~~
indiejade
Not.

We on YC News respect style, in various forms. We don't respect whining. I've
been on YC News longer than you and can see exactly what you're doing; it's
not cool.

~~~
dbul
I have to agree here. Comments that add no value whatsoever ought to be down
voted. At worst, your comment should have been left at 1 point. Personally, I
thought it added some intellectual value raising the question "have or has?"
And with a click...

