some things continue to be broken

A week ago, Google reached a “landmark settlement” with authors and publishers. I saw the headline somewhere, bookmarked it, told myself I must read it later. And life carried on.

Today I started catching up on “back burner” stuff, which nowadays includes unread bookmarked material. And went to this press release.

I began to read. Authors, publishers, and Google reach landmark settlement. [Good news.] Copyright accord would make millions more books available online. [Even better.] Then I got into the small print, which I reproduce here:

If approved by the court, the agreement would provide:

  • More access to out-of-print books […. ]enabling readers in the US to search these works and preview them online
  • Additional ways to purchase copyrighted books [….] further expanding the electronic market for copyrighted books in the US [….]
  • Institutional subscriptions to millions of books online [….] offering a means for US colleges, universities and other organisations [….]
  • Free access from US libraries [….] at designated computers in US public and university libraries [….]
  • [….]

You see where it’s broken? Not Google’s fault. But it needs fixing.

Let me know what you think

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.