Google v Authors Guild: a victory for readers' right to choose

A Manhattan court case about digitisation rights has brought books and the web a step closer togetherOn 14 November, after eight years of wrangling, Judge Denny Chin of the Manhattan district court finally ruled in the case of Google versus the Authors Guild. At issue was Google's scanning and digitisation of more than 20m books from libraries across the world, but at the heart of the case was question of what constitutes fair use in the age of the internet.For the Authors Guild, it was unquestioningly a violation of publishers' and authors' rights to copy their work wholesale and make "snippets" of it available online. For Google, and for many scholars and librarians who petitioned on its behalf, the indexing of those works is transformative, and adds to, rather than reduces, their value. After much deliberation, the courts have come to agree with the latter – it is, after all, what search engines have been doing to the web since it originated.There is a point at which we come to assume that a text is first and foremost digital. We've already passed that point for much of the media around us, understanding that even the letters we receive in the post are printed from digital "originals". Newspapers currently inhabit a mid-point: we're still unsure whether the printed or the website edition is the "true" version.That point is fast approaching for the book, and we are choosing the form that it will take. Essentially, the book is becoming more like the web, opened up to... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2013-11-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
News tagged with: #search engines #fast approaching #long term

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Atwood takes stage at TOC and tells publishers to keep feeding their authors

Written By: Philip Jones Publication Date: Wed, 16/02/2011 - 07:06 Author Margaret Atwood used her Tools of Change keynote speech to warn the industry not to eliminate authors, and make sure they are paid enough to "pay for the cheese sandwiches". read more Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Authors calls for moratorium on library closures

Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Fri, 11/02/2011 - 08:28 An open letter to culture secretary Jeremy Hunt and culture minister Ed Vaizey calling for a halt to library closures after the success of last weekend's protests has been signed by high-profile authors including Sarah... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Barbara Cartland is latest author to be wooed by digital

Written By: Lisa Campbell Publication Date: Fri, 11/02/2011 - 07:59 The estate of the romance writer Barbara Cartland has fallen to the embrace of digital, in a move that sees her print publisher suffering a painful rejection. About a quarter of Cartland's extensive ouevre is to be published... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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E-reader market doubles over Christmas in the UK

Written By: Philip Jones Publication Date: Wed, 09/02/2011 - 14:28 The e-reader market doubled over Christmas, according to statistics given out by the Publishers Association at its annual digital seminar. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Debut author wins Waterstone's Children's Book Prize

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Asda unveils UK's cheapest ebook reader

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Check Google Books data for errors, publishers warned

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Google shows off the graphical power of Android 3.0 Honeycomb

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[ Betanews | 2011-02-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Non-agency authors are Amazon UK’s bestselling ebooks

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Leahy Reintroduces Bill to Restore Reader Privacy Protections

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-02-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Apple Rejects Sony Reader App, Tightens Grip on Content Sales

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[ Folio Magazine | 2011-02-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Writers Are Asked Not to Talk About Author of ‘O’

Simon & Schuster requested that journalists and other writers not comment if asked whether they were responsible for the novel “O,” about a fictional 2012 presidential campaign. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2011-01-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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