I hope they iron out something that is beneficial to us all. Personally I think that the fifty year rule should be altered to read something along the lines of:
"Copyright if the book is available in print,, otherwise it goes into the public domain if there have been no hard copy sales available in the larger book stores for over a year."
There also needs to be something to take "electronic books" into consideration but I am not sure how we can prevent authors and publishers selling one electronic book a month to each other to keep the copyright alive.
Andrew Taylor
Google Books hearing officially delayed
Summary
The judge overseeing Google Books settlement has agreed to the plaintiffs' request for a delay of the final hearing scheduled to approve the controversial proposal.
Topics
The judge overseeing Google Books settlement has agreed to the plaintiffs' request for a delay of the final hearing scheduled to approve the controversial settlement, which is being reworked by the parties.
Judge Denny Chin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York had been scheduled to oversee a October 7 hearing about whether to approve a 2008 settlement between Google and several groups representing authors and publishers. However, the settlement, which gives Google sweeping rights to digitize out-of-print but copyright protected books, has drawn staunch opposition from many corners of the literary world as well as the U.S. Department of Justice.
As a result, the settlement is in the process of being reworked, and Judge Chin agreed to give the parties more time to rework the settlement following a request from the plaintiffs filed earlier this week. "Under all the circumstances, it makes no sense to conduct a hearing on the fairness and reasonableness of the current settlement agreement, as it does not appear that the current settlement will be the operative one," Chin wrote in a letter sent to both parties.
Instead, the parties will hold a status conference on the 7th to figure out what to do next. Chin noted that this case has been in the works for over four years, when groups representing authors and publishers sued Google in 2005 for digitizing books without explicit permission.
This article was originally posted on CNET News.
Talkback Most Recent of 2 Talkback(s)
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ampers@...25th Sep 2009 -
If its out of print -
Publishers should not retain the right to content without making it available. If it is out of print then they have no monetary interest in the contents - or else it would be available for purchase. let google digitize it and release it. if the content is out of print the author, the estate or the great grandchildren have no monetary interst in it anymore either - or else they would have it printed and circulated.
Copyright ad infinitum is just B$.
zclayton328th Sep 2009
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