
Google's plan for world's biggest online library: philanthropy or piracy? - vaksel
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/aug/30/google-library-project-books-settlement
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ghshephard
I continue to fail to understand why anybody but Google's competitors are up
in arms about this now. Google scanned a bunch of books - entered a gray area
in "Fair Use", was taken to court, _and then came to out-of-court settlement_.

Amazon is free to negotiate the same settlement with the book publishers.

Google is making available a sizable number of _out of print_ books - that is,
those books that can not be purchased from Amazon - and, here is the important
thing - _Only with the permission of the rights holders._

The only real major take away for Google are the "Orphan" works - that is
those books who no copyright holder can be found for and are out-of-print.

Does anyone out there who is not a competitor of Google see this as a bad
thing?

~~~
kierank
__Only with the permission of the rights holders.__

I don't have knowledge of the specifics of the case but I believe Google only
have the permission of an organisation representing authors, not the authors
themselves.

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clistctrl
[http://books.google.com/books?id=WuHYXm4tH3EC&printsec=f...](http://books.google.com/books?id=WuHYXm4tH3EC&printsec=frontcover&dq=subject:+Science+Fiction+&as_brr=3&ei=_QGbSriPIabUyQTWoo3rDg&rview=1#v=twopage&q=&f=false)

I can get hooked in a book then on the left is a link to Amazon for me to buy
it... I think this is potentially more beneficial to Amazon then threatening.

