Washington Post: Google's New Monopoly?
How the Company Could Gain by Paying Millions in Copyright Fees.
Last week, Google settled a controversial copyright case by agreeing to pay tens of millions in licensing fees to authors and publishers, with more to come. At first glance, it looks like this great champion of the free flow of information has caved to copyright interests. But in fact, Google may be better off with a settlement than an outright win. Before the court approves this agreement, then, it must consider the deal's anti-competitive effects.
A little history: In 2002, Google launched a project called Book Search. Its ambitious goal was to make every book in the English language text-searchable, just like Google aims to do — and largely does — with Web pages. The project held great promise; anyone with an Internet connection could be transformed into an armchair researcher, with the world's library at his or her fingertips.
But to realize this goal, Google had to machine-scan the texts of every book it would include. And because scanning is a kind of copying, a question arose: Did Google need a license — or, rather, millions of licenses — from those who own the copyrights to the books? …
Interesting article but I thought I would also add some commentary about Google's scanning work in the form of a few pics.
Great Grandma Kruse was born in Missouri a year after her folks moved her in 1870, from Plymouth, MA. While surfing the net several weeks ago, I stumbled across Google's version of William T. Davis' two-volume set Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth. Dozens of Great grandma's ancestors and kin are referenced in these volumes, and I was pleased to have this resource available in electronic form. However, as I began to move throughout the book, my enthusiasm waned. Here are a few examples of what I found.
The economic lesson here? You get what you pay for.
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