On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 1:51 AM, Ray Saintonge <sainto...@telus.net> wrote:
> Stephen Bain wrote: > > On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 5:27 AM, Parker Higgins<parkerhigg...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > >> Except google isn't asserting any kind of copyright control over these > >> books, they're just not making it convenient to download them in your > >> preferred format. Maybe not The Right Thing, but not as boneheaded as > suing > >> a party who reprints public domain material, as was the case in Feist v. > >> Rural (the supreme court case you mention.) > >> > > They want people to use their service. Fair enough, given that the > > scanning and OCRing happened on their dime. > > > > > How does that give them any special rights? There are no database > protection laws in the US, and sweat-of-the-brow has been rejected as a > basis for new copyrights. You're right, it doesn't give them any *special* rights. They have the same rights as any other computer owner. Specifically, they have the right to choose who uses their computers, and how they use them. Whether or not a terms of service is legally binding is really not the issue. (*) The issue is whether or not they have a duty to make it *convenient* for you to download the data. Of course they don't. Why should they be required to help you put them out of business? That kind of twisted logic might make sense in the non-profit world (although I still haven't seen the WMF step up to the plate and make it easy for people to make a full history fork, or even to download all the images), but Google is not a non-profit organization. Google would be Evil if it *didn't* protect itself against this, as it'd be breaking a promise to its shareholders. (*) Personally, I'm of the opinion that merely accessing a website is not sufficient to bind a websurfer to a TOS, and that at most a TOS which you do not have to even click "agree" to is a unilateral contract which can only impose promises upon the offeror, though this is not a legal opinion but merely my opinion of what the law should be. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
