Jessica Yu, Stanford, Google plan massive digitization project despite doubts, Daily Illini, April 27, 2005. Excerpt: 'Jonathan Zittrain, co-director of Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, said that Google and Stanford's partnership does not violate copyright law. "Under U.S. law, such digitization is what one would call a 'prima facie' or 'at first glance' infringement," Zittrain wrote in an e-mail to The Daily. "One would then look to legal defenses and privileges, such as fair use, to suggest that on balance, digitizing books that are no longer in print for archival purposes is not, in fact, copyright infringement." According to Google, books considered part of the public domain will be available for full viewing online, while those under copyright or from publishers will only be available in small excerpts. To be considered part of the public domain, books must be copyrighted before 1923 in the United States. Outside of the United States, books must be copyrighted before the 1900s to be considered part of the public domain because different copyright laws apply internationally. By showing only sentences from books not considered in the public domain, Zittrain said, Google appears to abide by the law. "Showing only snippets of a book, rather than entire pages, seems to be classic fair use," he wrote. While some publishers have expressed their concern over the project, none have threatened a lawsuit against Google or any of the participating institutions. "Surely there is a way - through some combination of compulsory licensing, fair use, micropayments, and privileges for educational use - to make millions of obscure but desired works instantly searchable and available to those with interest," said Zittrain.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/27/2005 10:54:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
