The Bodleian Library and Google. (GBS)

international | arts and media | opinion/analysis

Saturday September 26, 2009 12:02

by ud

*What were they thinking? *

A few of us may be waking up with a headache this morning but nothing like the one
encountered yesterday by Google lawyers who thought that piracy by any other name
would be tolerated Vis the GBS (The Google Book Settlement).

It's a fine idea to digitise every single book ever published if that is what you claim
you were instigated for; but to get up the noses of the writers and libraries whose
commitment to truth, to their art and to their poverties in the process of digitising
7,000,000 books- of which 5,000,000 were in copyright its another tale altogether.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tec....html

A Wiki Bodleian Image co of Wikipedia

If you are a member of Pirate Bay you go to jail for that kind of thing, if you are fond of corporate
avant-gardeism you get a medal... or not:

In this case *not* http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/sep/25/google...layed

The GBS project must be renegotiated because it may not continue in it's present form, that's
cos its not a Libraries project if you can:

i). Breach copyright.
ii). tear up the Berne Convention in realtion to EU authors.
iii) Make words disappear for Governments who would like all consumers buy filtering systems
to protect them from the world.
iv) Create a huge monolopy in which your competitiors would rather work together , than try and fight you
singly.
v) Utilise deposit libraries to make dirty deals over the heads of authors.

Here follows a set of links:

i). http://www.p2pnet.net/story/28103
ii).http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/6151136/Go....html
iii).http://euobserver.com/871/28625
iv).http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8242710.stm

Q: So whats it all about then ?
A: http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/

Q: How did we get drawn into it?
A: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_P...Works

Q:Does Joyce get ownership of his ideas under GBS ?
A: Not if there are pics or a foreword, cos they are prohibited under GBS, as are papers, letters, periodicals
and govt docs- but nonetheless they were willing to ransack our deposit libraries to bring books to
the world and the Bodleian joined it.

Q: Did Trinners?
A: No-one knows but the US Library of Congress rightly refused, so it's back to the drawing board for wordsmiths
and those who wish pursue ideas without ethics.

This thread is dedicated to iosaf Mac Diarmada and is inspired by this thread:

http://www.indymedia.ie/article/69527?search_text=st+jo...s+day

Ideas should not be cheapened by corporate avant-gardeis cos words too soon disappear if they
are constrained by bad contractural negotiations.

save preference

Comments (11 of 11)

irish authors link, for those who may need more info

Sat Sep 26, 2009 12:12

http://www.poetryireland.ie/resources/googlebooksettlem....html

I know a few people who got legal advice to ignore the deal, don't sign. I do wonder if
cecilia ahern did- but she ain't an author by any stretch.

ReCaptcha Captchaed

by Mark C

Sat Sep 26, 2009 13:38

The most progressive captcha widget has just been purchased by Google to help it to digitise its books.

reCAPTCHA is a free CAPTCHA service that helps to digitize books, newspapers and old time radio shows.

Google have now purchased it in order to make the digitising of their books an easier, faster process - and who's doing the digitising? You and me.

You want em - You got em

by gigapedia

Sat Sep 26, 2009 13:41

free books, see the delightful http://gigapedia.com/

free your mind

by E-Reader

Sat Sep 26, 2009 13:52

If you want proper free access to many otherwise overpriced recent books and are prepared to read pdf files on a computer screen then search through emule network / torrent sites. You'll be surprised at what you will find there.
http://www.mininova.org/cat/2
http://www.emugle.com/
http://btjunkie.org/

(if they supress those then there's always the "wild west" of IRC channels )

If you want to see how extended copyright has stunted us then look at project gutenberg and how far back the books they are allowed publish still are.
http://www.gutenberg.org/

Imagine if project gutenberg could publish books even up to 10 years old, how much more useful and relevant it would be to humankind. This is copyright law acting for the profits of corporations and completely losing sight of the greater good.

If it takes another corporate goliath like google to overcome the paralysing effects of long copyrights on society and make more relevant books available to a larger cross section of humanity then so be it. go google

google can *go*

by ud - eggs n baskets

Sat Sep 26, 2009 13:59

they are working with murdoch to get micropayments for online news. guardian do it for free. google can *go* awright. They fckd China.

a wee thought

by ud - eggs and baskets

Sat Sep 26, 2009 19:23

Theres Google, bing, yahoo, microsoft, wolfram alpha . Put these words through a search engine : Labyrinths, China, Monolith, data-privacy, monolopy and copyrights. http://www.euractiv.com/en/innovation/google-faces-new-...85200

2005 report on this

by -

Sun Sep 27, 2009 15:48

What is to stop people creating and preserving their own digital libraries for book-sharing, apart of course
from the twin idiots of Ryan (Ireland) and Mandelson (England) who would commission reports (Mandelson
has already it's called *Digital Britain* and then totally ignore them, indeed subvert them.

Only problem is that 24 hours after meeting David Geffen he subverted the Digital Britain report and
decided to take other advices (be it from his dinner guest or not is not entirely clear). Big problem
for governments is that many political representatives do not think and are susceptible to lobbies
'n lawyers rather than to their role in duty of care (Tara comes to mind when some corporate talks
about preservation, meaning keeping assorted bits in museums and fcking destroying everything else).

Google's ideas are here (2005) : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4320642.stm

Digital Britain here (2009) : http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/broadcasting/5631....aspx/

What really concerns me is that some activists here would defend *free-digitisation* that comes with the price
of subverting the work and words of those who actually created them by a monolithic corporate.
I fully believe that this is beacause Art is not considered to be work by some people when in fact it
is and many writers poured their life into creating those works that Google wishes to *own*-

They don't get to own the life's work of people by endowment, data-banks and breaching reader privacy.
I highly recommend TPB on this issue: #Pirate Bay. (sure here's their Twitter: http://twitter.com/tpb )

Merkel opposes GBS

Sun Oct 11, 2009 11:21

'bout time : Merkel has added her voice to the angry noises that the GBS has elicited. Great about time too, maybe her govt will look at the collapse of the archives of Cologne and urban 'gentrification' too : http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/11/google...ition

Origins of Copyright.

by Pete

Sun Oct 11, 2009 18:08

Not many people know that the concept of "copyright" was invented here in Ireland.

When a smart-alec young monk called Columcille made an exact copy of of an illuminated Irish manuscript his abbot Finnian demanded the copy because the copy was his property.

An Irish Brehon Law judge agreed:
"To every cow its calf...to every book its copy."

Copyright was thus invented.

Columcille got warlike over the affair
There was a "Cathach"..a battle.

Columcille lost and was expelled from Ireland.

He landed on to the remote Scottish island of Iona.

From Iona his followers (Aiden et al.) sailed on and founded Lindisfarne in Northumbria.

This changed the history of Scotland and England.
(Columcille is known as Columba in Scotland.)

Just shows you trouble you can get in to by illegally copying things.

The copied book is called "The Battle"...."An Cathach."

The copy still exists.

See it here:

http://www.google.ie/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikime...QEwBA

.

disasters

Mon Oct 12, 2009 11:04

it is *good* to see an german interest in preservation, so has the german govt commented on this disaster:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,6113....html

The urban gentrification programmes and fast-track planning accounted for that mess.

Not To Worry.

Mon Oct 12, 2009 11:14

There was no fire.

So every scrap of every document can be retrieved.

No better people to do it than the efficient Germans.
.

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The Bodleian Library and Google. (GBS)

Comments (11 of 11)