Here’s a Bookforum panel discussion on the implications of Google’s book scanning initiative. The participants are Nick Taylor, president of the Authors Guild; Allan R. Adler, AAP vice president for legal and governmental affairs; and Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School professor and public domain advocate.<\/p>\n
I haven’t formed a clear opinion on this issue, save for one thing: I think Google should make it an opt-in process for copyright holders. IOW, don’t touch my book(s) until I tell you it’s okay to scan them. Needless to say, that would make the process much more cumbersome and expensive.<\/p>\n
OTOH, Google is the one with the deep pockets. As one of the panelists says in this piece:<\/p>\n
Everyone knows most authors don’t make a living as authors. They have some other job or jobs that allow them the luxury of writing. And to be denied a potential source of revenue, whether the purpose is altruistic or not, is both galling and disappointing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The topic of making a living writing books — or, more precisely, how rare that is — was the topic of a couple<\/a> of literary agent blog posts<\/a> this week. So the question is, would Google’s book scanning scheme further reduce writers’ already meager returns?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here’s a Bookforum panel discussion on the implications of Google’s book scanning initiative. The participants are Nick Taylor, president of the Authors Guild; Allan R. Adler, AAP vice president for legal and governmental affairs; and Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School … Continue reading