With this settlement, Google has essentially guaranteed that no other company or government or philanthropic foundation will ever create a rival digital library. Because copyright holders are being treated as a class by the courts, no rival will be able to embark upon the same digitization process without negotiating separately with each holder or getting embroiled in a similarly lengthy and expensive class action lawsuit.
So basically, anyone else wanting to embark on a similar digitization project would be in the same situation Google was in originally, with respect to copyright law? That hardly seems draconian. Any such rival project would have to compete with Google, but that's what the first mover advantage entails.
This guy seems to be forgetting that books are just about irrelevant to public discussion. By the time Larry and Sergey die, that will be even more true. Google will be the sole curator of a collection of oddities and amusements from a bygone era -- not quite as much responsibility as he's making it out to be.
I disagree. I think books are better researched and are far more useful in the long run than the vast vast majority of information online. Books may be irrelevant to public discussion as it's occurring right now, but when the dust settles, where do you look for a salient recap? Books.
The author doesn't understand how the internet works. In many ways, the First Law of the Internet, as inescapable as a law of physics, is that if the information exists, infinitely many copies will be made. Software piracy is a great example of this: you simply cannot restrict movement of information. It's actually impossible. It doesn't matter how hard anyone tries, governments and private companies both included. The problem today is that the information does not exist in digital form. If Google digitizes it, to say that it'll be closed access is to have a deep misunderstanding of how the internet works.
Whether or not Google remains the portal which people use to access it will be determined separately, by whether or not Google remains the best way to do so.
This is a fairly interesting look on the recent settlement between Google and book publishers. The author has a point in that as a result of that ruling, Google has a regulated (by the courts) monopoly of source in which no other company can currently compete.
Bosh. the cost of the settlement was relatively paltry. Microsoft could throw a budget of 10 times the amount at it if Bill Gates woke up with a bee in his bonnet tomorrow.
"No organization except for Google will ever have the resources and the will to go through this, which cedes the entire field of digital human knowledge to Google."
So basically, anyone else wanting to embark on a similar digitization project would be in the same situation Google was in originally, with respect to copyright law? That hardly seems draconian. Any such rival project would have to compete with Google, but that's what the first mover advantage entails.