I agree with John that the Google's and Yahoo's digitization of books
is not a problem if the purpose is to provide access to specific
portions only - the creation of the intellectual showroom (look what
happened when the Border brothers encouraged people in their Ann
Arbor bookstore to actually sit and read part of the book before they
bought it). In fact, digitizing the entire book is the only way to
make this search process work - and the access would be permitted
under the fair use provisions of copyright. The technology is
certainly there to limit access to just the searched portions. But,
if access is provided to the entire book, then a copyright issue
comes up - which brings me back to my earlier posting about Yahoo's
plan to tie its Internet Archive to a "Bookmobile" that would allow
for on-demand printing of a book, purportedly in underdeveloped
areas. Such an on-demand printing activity without paying royalties
would be a problem (as Kinko's found out a number of years ago when
they put together on-demand university course packs from copyrighted
materials).
The core of this debate, however, is what belongs in the public
domain. My real concern is the absurdly long term for copyrights
that keeps materials out of the public domain - and goes well beyond
any incentive to the authors. That is why I applauded the release of
the Adelphi Charter on Creativity, Innovation and Intellectual Property.
Kenan Patrick Jarboe, Ph.D.
Athena Alliance
911 East Capitol Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003-3903
(202) 547-7064
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.AthenaAlliance.org
http://www.IntangibleEconomy.org
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