The latest frontier in the digital content revolution -- efforts by Google, Amazon and others to turn millions of books into bytes that can be accessed no matter where the reader is, sold by the page and easily searched -- could redefine copyright law and change the way knowledge is shared around the world, say experts at Wharton.
After Google announced Google Print -- its plan to digitize the libraries of Harvard, the University of Michigan, Stanford, Oxford and the New York Public Library -- the Authors Guild and the American Association of Publishers filed lawsuits over the scanning of copyrighted books. Their action could lead to a high profile court case redefining copyright law, which now states that a content owner's permission is required before intellectual property can be copied, redistributed, displayed or used to form the basis for derivative works.
On November 3, Google launched the first installment of Google Print, which dodged the copyright issue by including only texts which were in the public domain. Because this material is no longer protected by copyright law, anyone can browse the full contents of a book and save individual pages. The project's launch, however, was overshadowed by news that the company plans to resume scanning copyrighted works to expand the Google Print database. Google had originally begun doing this in August, but delayed the process to allow publishers the option to exclude their works. Google plans to put copyrighted books in its search results, but limit what users will see unless it gets permission from publishers and authors to show more. Publishers can choose to keep their books digitized by Google and its search engine.
"Google is clearly going out on a limb with respect to copyright. The limb may well hold, which I think would be the better result as a matter of public policy," says Wharton legal studies and business ethics professor [continue]
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