Google set to be ‘the’ online library
August 21, 2009
The Open Book Alliance has signed up Yahoo, Microsoft and Amazon to its cause of stopping Google becoming the internets biggest virtual library.
Last year Google reached a settlement with authors and publishers to spend $125 million setting up the Book Rights Registry. Here, publishers and authors can register work and receive 70% of any sales. Google would retain 30%. Google could also be allowed to publish works whose rights-holders are not known
Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive says that “Google is trying to monopolise the library system. If this deal goes ahead they’re making a real shot at being ‘the’ library and the only library.”
The Internet Archives Director of Access Peter Bradley said: “We feel that if approved, Google would earn a court-sanctioned monopoly and the exploitation of a comprehensive collection of books from the 20th century.”
Google have countered saying that the deal will help writers and also make out of print books readily available again.
Many seem to be concerned that Google’s deal is not clear on specifics like anti-trust and privacy.
Author, Michelle Richmond says that she hears fellow writers saying “I don’t know what this settlement really means”, she went on to say: “But this is the brave new world and we don’t really know where it is going.”
Thanks to www.marketwatch.com for the above quotes, for more information on this article please visit their website.
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