[Web4lib] Christian Science Monitor editorial about Google Books project

[Chris Strauber]

Actually I agree: the right way to settle the orphan works problem is
to write a law which doesn't require anyone else who wants to follow
in Google's footsteps to get sued and settle individually with every
publisher on the planet. I don't like the precedent, but am impressed
with the chutzpah and pragmatism of Google in realizing that just
doing it and demonstrating there was money to be made would encourage
publishers to settle.

As a practical matter, however, the theoretical ability for other
vendors to do what Chadwyck-Healey did with EEBO has not notably
affected pricing for it, or made a comparably-sized body of texts
available.


Chris Strauber

On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 11:47 AM, Thomas Dowling<tdowling at ohiolink.edu> wrote:
> On 08/12/2009 09:46 AM, Chris Strauber wrote:
>> For consideration: In what way is the proposed Google Books deal
>> different from the monopoly we've given to Proquest on dissertations
>> and theses?
>
> I can point to about 800k theses and dissertations freely available online from
> non-Proquest sites.  I can point to a few thousand others for sale at
> non-Proquest sites.  Proquest has some advantages - they're a one-stop shopping
> option and their sales catalog is considered the primary finding tool for the
> field - but there's no monopoly there.
>
>> How about Early English Books Online? EEBO is actually a
>> better example, in that all the contents are long, long out of
>> copyright by definition.
>
> And you're free to go to the public domain print copies and do the same
> scanning and markup work Chadwyck-Healey did.
>
> In both cases, there's one prominent commercial vendor in the field, but
> nothing stopping any newcomers from setting up shop on equal legal terms.
> AIUI, the Google book deal is different because Google alone would have legal
> protection from copyright claims related to digitizing and selling orphan works.
>
>
> --
> Thomas Dowling
> tdowling at ohiolink.edu
>
>
>
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