Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to re: Everyone has a monopoly on their own property.

The actual issue is at the end of the article.
Mary Anne — (archived)

"The main objection to the deal is the way in which so-called orphan works are treated. Under the terms of the agreement Google is protected from copyright infringement from authors who abandoned their books by not registering in its books database. If they show up later, all they can do is collect a little cash, change their book price or ask Google to stop selling the book. Otherwise infringement can be up to $150,000 per violation."

Emphasis mine.

Google tried to assert the right to claim other people's work because they, the other people, the authors, didn't register their books with Google. This reminds me of the credit report people who get information wrong and then punish the individual who didn't ask them to collect the information in the first place.

Tell me that this is an organization devoted to dissemination of free information. They expect to sell these books. And you're complaining about AP? They're only trying to make a buck off their own stuff.

Also, copyright remains in the hands of the producer, be it the artist or the original publisher that made the contract with the artist. Google has rights to their own formatting, but they're trying to assert rights to any digital formatting of a work they have copied. The DoJ is more concerned about the equivalent of trying to own the only printing press.

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