Google and its digital future:

Do we need it or not:

Google’s hopes of creating the world’s largest digital library remain uncertain after New York district court declared it needed more time to rule on this controversial project. Announced in 2004, the $200 million projects began by scanning and digitalizing the entire libraries of four major universities, including “Harvard” and “Oxford”, and the New York public library.
In written for permission to digitize these works and make excerpts available through its search engine, the libraries were promised a digital copies of books and journals. The case, which has implications not only for authors and publishers but also for anti-trust practices and copyright law, has been snagged in the legal quagmire since 2005.

The author’s guild and the association of American publishers filed a class action suit against “Google Inc”. For resorting to what they regarded as a massive copyright in infringement for commercial use. Google claimed that use of “snippets” and “excerpts” of copyrighted works were exempted under the principle of “fair use.”

The case assumed a wholly new dimension when authors, publishers and libraries entered into an agreement with Google in 2008 to put in a place in a business model to compensate the former for use of copyrighted work through Google’s digital platform.















The agreement included out-of-print works and “orphan works” (where copyright is unknown) for free previews. A revised agreement was filed in court the following years after the U.S justice department held that original agreement could be violation of anti-trust laws.
It would benefit all the final ruling strikes an equitable and fine balance – one that protects the rights of authors and publishers that addresses concerned about Google acquiring a monopoly over a vast digital library, and that does not hinder a possible revolution in public access to knowledge.

Under the terms of revised settlement, millions out-of-print works will be available to reaches and readers in a searchable online database. There can be little doubt that Google’s digital project that vastly improves public access to books. Some countries claim that the settlement violates the “Berne Convention” for protection of literary and artistic works. “France” is even preparing its own rival to Google’s book.




















The Bottom Line:

Given such developments, the view that too much is to be decided by a settlement before a court has gained ground. What is really needed in a comprehensive legislative framework for book digitization. "I think it will be really useful to all of us and it is up to you, you can decide yours."