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Actually, one of the big concerns about Google having exclusive rights to the digitization of out-of-print works is the price that they will charge. At the meeting at ALA Washington that I went to, some of the librarians present wanted the price issue to be the main issue that libraries would bring up to the court. Here's how I imagine it going: - digitized versions of millions of books become available, via Google - some academic institutions subscribe to this service (say, Harvard, Stanford, a few others) - to compete, other academic institutions must also subscribe, because their students and faculty will be less able to engage in research if they don't - the subscription will come out of the library's budget - without competition, Google (with the agreement of the registry, whose purpose is to garner as much income as possible for rights holders) will charge a price that is more than some institutions will be able to afford; others will subscribe, but to the detriment of other resource subscriptions. That's basically what was being said, although in slightly different terms. kc Eric Hellman wrote: > But the argument being trotted out is that having orphan works > available through Google would HURT libraries, which is a somewhat > different discussion. > > The arguments I see for that (as applied to libraries other than the > internet Archive) are: > 1. Asset devaluation. Just as DeBeers would be hurt if Google started > selling cheap diamonds, because their stock of diamonds would be > devalued, libraries would find their collections devalued. > 2. Competition. Patrons would have attractive alternatives to visiting > libraries to access information locked onto paper. > > But let's imagine that Internet Archive was shoehorned into the > settlement. How would these arguments change? Asset devaluation would > presumably be worse as the price was driven down, and Libraries (other > than IA) would be faced with more competition, not less. On the other > hand, presumably libraries would gain more options in indexing and > thus improved access to their collections. > > Eric > http://hellman.net/eric/ > > On May 20, 2009, at 3:47 PM, [log in to unmask] wrote: > >> On 5/20/09 11:19 AM, Eric Hellman wrote: >> > I don't see how bashing Google (which is NOT what the >> > library association briefs are doing, btw) for gaps in US >> > and international Copyright Law(orphan works, for example) >> > will end up helping libraries. >> >> i think the concern is that the settlement could give >> _only_ Google the right to scan orphaned works, and no >> one else. that certainly wouldn't help libraries. >> >> [log in to unmask] > > -- ----------------------------------- Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant [log in to unmask] http://www.kcoyle.net ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet fx.: 510-848-3913 mo.: 510-435-8234 ------------------------------------