Google to launch platform for selling books online
Full article is here.
"Although the scanning program has faced complaints from authors and publishers over copyright, Google Editions will cover only books submitted and approved by the copyright holders."
Although I posted a rather optimistic view on Fub's journal the other day, this news makes me a little anxious. The complaints from authors were mostly about books that were out of print, if I recall correctly. Google thought that selling digital books that are out of print was a good idea, but authors have the right to take those manuscripts to a new publisher and have a new edition published as they see fit. Just because a book is out of print, doesn't mean that you can sell it without the author's permission, not on a scale as large as this anyway.
In Fub's post I said that we have to get used to the fact that people can copy the things we've created, modern technology makes that easier and easier. We're going to have to ask people politely to credit us for the things we have created, but there is no way we can enforce our copyright by law and say "You can't do that! It's mine!" because... well, they can do that. They probably just did.
Still, it's quite different if some doofus steals your content and puts it on his blog, or if it's one of the biggest companies on the internet who wants to sell it for cash without giving you a dime, and there's no way you could ever beat them in court because they just have more money.
Please feel free to say what you think about this.
"Although the scanning program has faced complaints from authors and publishers over copyright, Google Editions will cover only books submitted and approved by the copyright holders."
Although I posted a rather optimistic view on Fub's journal the other day, this news makes me a little anxious. The complaints from authors were mostly about books that were out of print, if I recall correctly. Google thought that selling digital books that are out of print was a good idea, but authors have the right to take those manuscripts to a new publisher and have a new edition published as they see fit. Just because a book is out of print, doesn't mean that you can sell it without the author's permission, not on a scale as large as this anyway.
In Fub's post I said that we have to get used to the fact that people can copy the things we've created, modern technology makes that easier and easier. We're going to have to ask people politely to credit us for the things we have created, but there is no way we can enforce our copyright by law and say "You can't do that! It's mine!" because... well, they can do that. They probably just did.
Still, it's quite different if some doofus steals your content and puts it on his blog, or if it's one of the biggest companies on the internet who wants to sell it for cash without giving you a dime, and there's no way you could ever beat them in court because they just have more money.
Please feel free to say what you think about this.