-Original Message-
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/11/further-thoughts-google-book-search
-settlement
".. By settling rather than taking the case all the way ..., Google has
solved its own copyright problem - but not anyone else's. Without a
legal precedent about the copyright status of book scanning, future
innovators are left to defend their own copyright lawsuits. In essence,
Google has left its former copyright adversaries to maul any competitors
that want to follow its lead.
"Google will doubtless be considering the same endgame for the Viacom
lawsuit against YouTube. If Google can strike a settlement with a large
slice of the aggrieved copyright owners, then it solves the copyright
problem for itself, while leaving it as a barrier to entry for YouTube's
competitors.
But when innovators like Google cut individual deals, it weakens the
Silicon Valley innovation ecology for everyone, because it leaves the
smaller companies to carry on the fight against well-endowed opponents.
Those kinds of cases threaten to yield bad legal precedents that tilt
the rules against disruptive innovation generally."
