
What Happens When Larry and Sergey Die? - kqr2
http://www.thebigmoney.com/blogs/feeling-lucky/2009/02/02/what-happens-when-larry-and-sergey-die
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neilc
_With this settlement, Google has essentially guaranteed that no other company
or government or philanthropic foundation will ever create a rival digital
library. Because copyright holders are being treated as a class by the courts,
no rival will be able to embark upon the same digitization process without
negotiating separately with each holder or getting embroiled in a similarly
lengthy and expensive class action lawsuit._

So basically, anyone else wanting to embark on a similar digitization project
would be in the same situation Google was in originally, with respect to
copyright law? That hardly seems draconian. Any such rival project would have
to compete with Google, but that's what the first mover advantage entails.

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noaharc
This guy seems to be forgetting that books are just about irrelevant to public
discussion. By the time Larry and Sergey die, that will be even more true.
Google will be the sole curator of a collection of oddities and amusements
from a bygone era -- not quite as much responsibility as he's making it out to
be.

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dasil003
I disagree. I think books are better researched and are far more useful in the
long run than the vast vast majority of information online. Books may be
irrelevant to public discussion as it's occurring right now, but when the dust
settles, where do you look for a salient recap? Books.

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frisco
The author doesn't understand how the internet works. In many ways, the First
Law of the Internet, as inescapable as a law of physics, is that _if the
information exists, infinitely many copies will be made._ Software piracy is a
great example of this: you simply cannot restrict movement of information.
It's actually impossible. It doesn't matter how hard anyone tries, governments
and private companies both included. The problem today is that the information
does not exist in digital form. If Google digitizes it, to say that it'll be
closed access is to have a deep misunderstanding of how the internet works.

Whether or not Google remains the portal which people use to access it will be
determined separately, by whether or not Google remains the best way to do so.

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Femur
This is a fairly interesting look on the recent settlement between Google and
book publishers. The author has a point in that as a result of that ruling,
Google has a regulated (by the courts) monopoly of source in which no other
company can currently compete.

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NonEUCitizen
"No organization except for Google will ever have the resources and the will
to go through this, which cedes the entire field of digital human knowledge to
Google."

Amazon?

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anigbrowl
Bosh. the cost of the settlement was relatively paltry. Microsoft could throw
a budget of 10 times the amount at it if Bill Gates woke up with a bee in his
bonnet tomorrow.

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phil_collins
You can be sure they'll spend their billions trying to figure out a way not to
die.

