Ambitious Google project: a digital age test of copyright law - 09/19/05

Ambitious Google project: a digital age test of copyright law - 09/19/05

With Google’s book-scanning program set to resume in earnest this fall, copyright laws that long preceded the Internet look to be headed for a digital-age test.

The outcome could determine how easy it will be for people with Internet access to benefit from knowledge that’s now mostly locked up — in books sitting on dusty library shelves, many of them out of print.

“More and more people are expecting access, and they are making do with what they can get easy access to,” said Brewster Kahle, co-founder of the Internet Archive, which runs smaller book-scanning projects, mostly for out-of-copyright works. “Let’s make it so that they find great works rather than whatever just happens to be on the Net.”

Book publishers use the internet to promote their products, but they have not recognized the immergence of digital stakeholders. Google sees this and is making a move that will change the book industry forever. Publishers need to do a better jobof recognizing their stakehodlers and adjust accordingly. With the internet and all that it offers there is no reason for students to be paying $200 a semester for books. Publishers would make better profit if they charged half for the digital version of the book and allowed students to use the extra $ on a laptop. What an idea, the student benefits and the publisher benefits. But industries often do not change unless forced to.

19 September, 2005 |

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