Actually, one of the big concerns about Google having exclusive rights
to the digitization of out-of-print works is the price that they will
charge. At the meeting at ALA Washington that I went to, some of the
librarians present wanted the price issue to be the main issue that
libraries would bring up to the court. Here's how I imagine it going:
- digitized versions of millions of books become available, via Google
- some academic institutions subscribe to this service (say, Harvard,
Stanford, a few others)
- to compete, other academic institutions must also subscribe, because
their students and faculty will be less able to engage in research if
they don't
- the subscription will come out of the library's budget
- without competition, Google (with the agreement of the registry, whose
purpose is to garner as much income as possible for rights holders) will
charge a price that is more than some institutions will be able to
afford; others will subscribe, but to the detriment of other resource
subscriptions.
That's basically what was being said, although in slightly different terms.
kc
Eric Hellman wrote:
But the argument being trotted out is that having orphan works
available through Google would HURT libraries, which is a somewhat
different discussion.
The arguments I see for that (as applied to libraries other than the
internet Archive) are:
1. Asset devaluation. Just as DeBeers would be hurt if Google started
selling cheap diamonds, because their stock of diamonds would be
devalued, libraries would find their collections devalued.
2. Competition. Patrons would have attractive alternatives to visiting
libraries to access information locked onto paper.
But let's imagine that Internet Archive was shoehorned into the
settlement. How would these arguments change? Asset devaluation would
presumably be worse as the price was driven down, and Libraries (other
than IA) would be faced with more competition, not less. On the other
hand, presumably libraries would gain more options in indexing and
thus improved access to their collections.
Eric
http://hellman.net/eric/
On May 20, 2009, at 3:47 PM, st...@archive.org wrote:
On 5/20/09 11:19 AM, Eric Hellman wrote:
> I don't see how bashing Google (which is NOT what the
> library association briefs are doing, btw) for gaps in US
> and international Copyright Law(orphan works, for example)
> will end up helping libraries.
i think the concern is that the settlement could give
_only_ Google the right to scan orphaned works, and no
one else. that certainly wouldn't help libraries.
/st...@archive.org
--
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Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kco...@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
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