Nilanjana Roy, The library of everything, New Delhi Business Standard, February 8, 2005. Excerpt: 'Even in Beta, [Google Print is] working better than Amazon's search, while generating its share of controversy: many publishing houses and authors are nervous about copyright issues. Google has attempted to address their fears in several ways: the only complete works on database are out-of-copyright works, if you search for a book that is copyrighted at present, you will get only an excerpt or a few pages, and print or save file commands have been disabled on this engine. Publishing houses are still grumbling about possible piracy issues, but they're looking in the wrong direction....The publishing world wasn't worried at that time [of Napster] about the implications of electronic file sharing: most readers preferred physical books to e-books, there were few decent e-readers available, and relatively few people would share e-books online in the same way that they might share their music collections. But as e-book layouts have improved and scanners have become more widely available, the publishing industry might find that its complacency is terribly misplaced. Shareaza is just one of the many new, improved file-sharing networks that offers users the opportunity to share books as well as audio and video files. It currently has thousands of books available on the network, with more being added every month --and Shareaza is just one network. This generation is more comfortable reading off screen than the previous one, just as MP3 enthusiasts are prepared to live with a drop in music quality in order to access free music. This is the face of the new, web library as I see it. It will act both as a force multiplier for readers and as a possible conduit for piracy. It will be a repository for rare books, a source for unusual books, and indeed, a cemetery for forgotten books.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 2/08/2005 10:04:00 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.
