Showing posts with label digital library monopoly concerns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label digital library monopoly concerns. Show all posts

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Google books deal battle heats up; BBC News, 9/4/09

Maggie Shiels via BBC News; Google books deal battle heats up:

"The most vocal critics of the deal have largely banded together to form the Open Book Alliance. It was set up by the non-profit Internet Archive, which has its own book-scanning project and has to date digitised 500,000 books.

"Just as Gutenberg's invention of the printing press more than 700 years ago ushered in a new era of knowledge sharing, the mass digitisation of books promises to revolutionise how we read and discover books," said Peter Brantley of the alliance.

"But a digital library controlled by a single company and small group of publishers would inevitably lead to higher prices and subpar services for consumers, libraries, scholars and students."...

Many believe the issue of rights over out-of-print books would best be solved by legislation and not the courts.

"It is never a good thing for private parties to make deals for the public good," said Martin Manley, the founder of Alibris.com, an online store which sells used, rare and out-of-print books.
"The public good is meant to be solved by regulators who are somewhat accountable and by legislators who are wholly accountable," Mr Manley told BBC News."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8237271.stm