Word: copyrighting
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
According to Goldenberg, copyright rests “control...firmly in the hands of the authors and publishers.” Copyright law, fortunately, does not work this way. Copyright gives some exclusive rights to authors, but it also includes various exceptions to authors’ control, including fair use. Fair uses do not require permission...
Goldenberg is thus dead wrong when he says that Google Print necessarily takes control away from authors and “compromises the spirit...of copyright.” If Google’s use is fair, the authors have no such control to begin with, and fair use is entirely consonant with copyright’s purpose. Google’s use is piracy only in the sense that fair use quoting is piracy. In fact, Google does not even have to provide an opt-out if its use is fair...
Certainly, reasonable people can disagree about whether Google’s copying is fair use. Google’s service might impair copyright holders’ ability to license and get paid for this use, but it also likely promotes book sales and will increase the public’s access to creative works. Google’s service itself is a form of creativity that we might want to protect...
...into the realm of the positively piratical. They fail to account, however, for a truly fundamental precondition for Google’s distributing printed material in this way—that, in the default situation, control remains firmly in the hands of the authors and publishers who own the copyrights of the books in question. Google’s opt-out proposition takes that basic control away from those to whom it rightfully belongs, compromising, in my non-expert estimation, the spirit—if not also the letter—of copyright laws...
When my high school classmates filled their hard drives with hordes of pirated music, videos, and software, they broke the law. Now, in digitizing thousands of books without the express consent of their copyright holders, Google stands to do the same. Because their ends are so good, and because a single court victory could jeopardize the entire project, it is in everyone’s best interest that Google back down and give authors and publishers their...