Everything old is new again. With the entrance of Microsoft into the mass book digitization process, the status of books as “the next big thing” in digital content has been confirmed. Newspapers and the general trade press continue to treat Yahoo!’s participation in the Open Content Alliance as its way of competing with Google Print in this now critical content arena....Microsoft representatives repeatedly avow their commitment to respecting all copyrights and to working out mutually agreeable protections for copyright holders, contrasting their virtue with Google Print’s questionable policies. As a vigorous complainer about worldwide piracy of its software, Microsoft’s commitment to intellectual property would seem unavoidable. Nevertheless, the company also believes that such a commitment, when aligned with its other assets, could lead it to have more access to in-copyright material over time, as copyright holders look to work with it. To this end, the company expects to add interfaces and technical avenues to facilitate a publisher’s ability to feed content into its system....[Microsoft's] initial 150,000 book commitment will allow free searching of the public domain book content through OCA outlets --e.g., Yahoo! Search and MSN itself. As an open Web content source, it can also expect spidering by Google and other Web search engines, and OCA material is downloadable. However, as in-copyright content in MSN Book Search expands through arrangements with copyright holders, complete access to all MSN Book Search content will probably involve a combination of free open Web and restricted, premium access. ...So what’s in this for Microsoft? At this point, it’s a long road ahead. However, Microsoft is already looking at different business models to make the effort profitable. Danielle Tiedt, general manager of content acquisition for MSN, suggested a few models under consideration. These include pay-per-page, pay-per-chapter, monthly subscriptions, selling e-books, advertising, sponsored access, and so on. No decisions have been made so far. Obviously, the copyright status of the book will have great influence on the business model. MSN already has billing systems in place, as does Yahoo!. Google reportedly is launching a new billing system and is developing other payment platforms, including pay-per-view and the insertion of clickable ads into scanned documents....Liz Lawley, a visiting researcher working with Microsoft Search, said: “Microsoft understands that when it comes to Search, closed approaches won’t work. The value in MSN Book Search will not come so much from the data as from the integrated tools and building interfaces to the data.” Lawley considers the interfaces critical, especially since the majority of Web users don’t form good full-text queries. She also believes that the world is well-served by having different organizations competing in this arena, fearing the specter of one organization containing and controlling too much of the world’s information. And what’s in this for Web users? It seems one thing has become clear. All the major search engines, not to mention the world of Web users, now believe that all information should come onto the Web. Google’s mission statement --”to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”-- seems to have become the mantra for all major Web suppliers. The race has begun to get it all done.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/01/2005 09:26:00 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.
