[Web4lib] Consumer Group Raises Concerns about Google Print Library

[Phalbe Henriksen]

At 04:28 PM 10/25/2005, Nicholas Finke wrote:

>On Oct 25, 2005, at 12:45 PM, Chuck0 wrote:
>
>>NCL wrote:
>>
>>>"In a letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary
>>>subcommittees overseeing intellectual property issues, the nation's
>>>oldest consumer advocacy group...warned...that the project, which
>>>will
>>>resume scanning on November 1, 2005 poses dramatic threats to the
>>>principle of copyrights; fairness to authors; and cultural
>>>selectivity,
>>>exclusion, and censorship."
>>
>>While I have plenty of reservations about a big corporation and its
>>plan to become "the Internet," I see anything that dissolves
>>intellectual property and moves our society to the eventual
>>abolition of IP as a good thing. The National Consumers League is
>>misguided and misinformed when it states that Google Print will
>>hurt consumers and authors. Projects like Google Print can only
>>help "consumers" by making available more intelelctual content
>>online, in the same way a big public library makes a wealth of
>>material availabe to the community.
>
>What good does it do an author to have a wider exposure of his/her
>work if the work can be freely copied without any payment?  As I see
>it, the primary problem is not with the existence of intellectual
>property rights, in this case copyright, but with the ridiculously
>long term of protection.  In a world where practically instantaneous
>communication is possible and copying requires only a keystroke we
>have made copyright terms perpetual, at least in practice.  From
>being a modest protection so that authors can benefit from initial
>publication, copyright now lasts for over two lifetimes (author's
>life + 70 years).  Any reasonable incentive to create wouldn't have
>to be longer than 20 years or so.
>
>**************************************************
>Nicholas D. Finke
>446 Hillcrest Drive
>Wyoming, Ohio 45215
>nfinke1 at cinci.rr.com
>Tel: (513) 761-0744
>
>
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