Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 13:05:49 -0500
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: books on google, and the copyright implications
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

> ronkean at juno.com 12/24/04 10:28:03 AM >>>
>
>On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 02:33:08 -0500 (EST) "Keith F. Lynch"
><kfl at KeithLynch.net> writes:
>> ronkean at juno.com wrote:
>>
>> > Google has started a project to digitize and index
>> out-of-copyright books, making them accessible via a
>search function on
>the web.
>> > Eventually, that could mean vastly more than 5,000 books
>> accessible for the cost of an internet connection.  Thereby
>a billion
>or
>> more people could each have a library of hundreds of
>thousands of
>> volumes.
>>
>> Doesn't this duplicate Project Gutenberg?
>>
>
>It does sound a lot like Project Gutenberg, but there are
>differences.
>With Gutenberg, you go to a website and select whole works
>to peruse or
>download, and the number of works available (for now) is not
>huge.  With
>the Google plan, you would go to a website and be given the
>option to
>search for keywords, phrases, or some such search criteria,
>and then the
>relevant hits would appear from the whole universe of indexed
>texts.  So
>it's more focused on searching the universe of books for
>specific subject
>matter as opposed to downloading selected whole works.
>
>Google seems to be going about it in a big way, looking to
>make deals
>with some large university libraries to scan and index vast
>amounts of
>material.  One report I read lamented that google would
>probably also be
>doing copyrighted works, and that the authors would not
>receive
>compensation.

*sigh*

Rather than relying on secondary sources, let's go the horse's mouth:
http://print.google.com/googleprint/about.html
https://print.google.com/publisher/
https://print.google.com/publisher/online_faq#overview

mjw