In a move likely to please the Authors Guild (it pleases me as a writer) Yahoo has agreed that, unlike Google, it will get permission of the authors first before scanning their works and offering them free to the public. Yahoo, incidentally, is not working alone in this as Google is.
The founding members of the OCA include Yahoo, Adobe, the Internet Archive, the European Archive, Prelinger Archives, H-P Labs, the U.K.’s National Archives, O’Reilly Media Inc, the University of California and the University of Toronto.
That Yahoo is not alone strikes me as a positive. Even CNN is getting leery of cash-rich Google.
Isn’t it nice to have a little competition? Don’t you wish you also had a choice in operating systems?
Yes, Yahoo is so much better than Google even though they’re both doing almost the same thing- letting the author opt out. Pay no attention to the poor man they put in prison because Google is evil because they have money and Yahoo is wonderful even though they have money too…
Of course CNN is leery of Google. They must have just realized their competitors! (CNN of course, being part of Time Warner/AOL)
Richard Parsons was on the Charlie Rose show last week. He comes across as a very intelligent guy who seems a degree more decent that most of the driven CEOs at his level.
One of the things he discussed was AOL, where its only hope for a continued life is to become a portal in the Yahoo/MSN mode, while milking its dying dial-up business, which is still grossing $2 billion a year.
Seems like he’s playing his hand the best he can, but I’d hate to have his collection of geriatric info brands CNN, Time, AOL et al.
Once again, Google was not and is not taking works that are under copyright and “offering them free to the public”. The Authors Guild has not alleged that they are (except by implication in PR releases designed to make Google look bad), and are not suing based on that claim, because it is not what Google was doing.
Google was making, without permission, internal-use scans of copyrighted works for the use of Google Print’s search engine, with an opt-out for people who did not want their works scanned. This is the same way Google handles other copyrighted works, such as websites. The argument of the Authors Guild is that this internal-use database of scanned works violates copyright and requires positive permission, given that U.S. copyright law has special provisions for websites that do not apply.
Steve, yes, all true.
Yahoo’s approach is arguably more polite and less arrogant, though.
Yahoo’s approach may be more polite to the authors, but it’s a lot less useful to the public. Remember the public? – we’re always the forgotten party in the copyright bargain.
How exactly does giving authors a right to hide their copyrighted works (as the Yahoo approach would) facilitate the purpose of copyright, which is “to promote the progress of science and the useful arts”.