Nancie G. Marzulla, president of Defenders of Property Rights, today submitted a letter to members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees asserting that opponents of the Google Book Search program are seriously misrepresenting the facts about this emerging breakthrough in intellectual research. She went on to outline the technology's clear compliance with the "fair use doctrine."
In her letter (see text below), Ms. Marzulla called on Congress to question critics' claims that the Google Book Search project violates copyright law, and urged the congressional committees to protect the importance transformative technologies like the Google Book Search project have on our economy's growth and development. As one of the nation's most well-respected property rights attorneys, Ms. Marzulla does not see any violations in the case of Google Book Search.
"As an attorney who specializes in the constitutional protection of intellectual property rights, I am a close observer of emerging technologies which, when misused, represent a threat to property rights. Google Book Search does not represent such a threat to property rights, as it only allows users to view "snippets" of information -- not even a whole page of text," said Ms. Marzulla.
She continued, "When one takes a close look at Google's new tool, one would realize that far from diminishing the value of a book, the search tool actually enhances a book's value by drawing it to the attention of readers who have a higher than average interest in buying it, having seen firsthand how the book contains information relevant to their inquiry," said Ms. Marzulla.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/19/2006 09:34:00 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.
