New Report 9/23

Mallory Phillips

September 23, 2009

New Report

 

Copyright Head Tells House She Opposes Google Books Settlemen

 

By: Gordon Flagg: American Libraries Online

 

http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2009/september2009/petersopposesgooglebooks091609.cfm

 

            This article is basically about the Register of Copyrights, Marybeth Peters, opposing the settlement with Google’s Book Search project. She feels that this deal will undermine Congress’ right to govern copyrights, and could have serious problems internationally dealing with books that are published outside of the United States. The settlement would allow Google to scan copyrighted books, and display 20% of that book to users for no charge. If you wanted to see the whole book, you would have to pay for it. Thirty-seven percent of the revenue would go to Google, and the rest would go to the copyright holders. Peters feels that this is taking away from the copyright holders. Google Chief Legal Officer disagrees. He feels that this is “fully compliant with copyright law,” and it provides choice and competition to the rights holders. Some people believe that this provides the public with information that otherwise would not be so easily available to them, even though they would have to pay for it, and others still feel that it is not fair to the copyright holders. The final hearing on this issue will be held October 7 in New York.

            I can see why some people would oppose this issue, and I can also see why some would be perfectly fine with it. I think it is a good idea to have a variety of books available to the public, but I don’t understand why Google? They are just in it to make money from it. I don’t see why publishers don’t already have something like this available. If they just had their own setup like what Google is trying to offer, there would probably be no controversy.