Burt Helm and Hardy Green, Google This: "Copyright Law", Business Week, May 27, 2005. Excert: 'Google's library project would make digital versions of whatever libraries hand over -- including copyrighted books -- regardless of whether authors or publishers agree....Problem No. 1 is that Google's plan is a clear violation of copyright laws, according to publishers and many lawyers....[S]ome legal experts, such as Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig, say there is some flexibility in the "fair use" exemption in copyright law, which makes allowances for limited reproduction for purposes such as criticism, scholarship, or research....If servers full of books were hacked, copyrighted material would be freely available all over the web....Another reason for the industry's vehemence is the way Google's digital library was announced. Just two months before, many major publishers had worked out their own agreements with the search giant to display selected titles, in a project called Print for Publishers. Similar services, like Amazon's "Search Inside the Book," have increased online sales. And many publishers remain excited about the prospects of Google's program doing the same. "We're very careful about protecting our content," says Kate Tentler, vice-president and publisher at Simon & Schuster Online. "But we do think this could be a great additional marketing and sales tool." But now the library program has caught them off guard.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/29/2005 11:24:00 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.
