Scanned books

[MKG]

Can anyone tell me what is wrong with Google's stance on scanning and making available out of print books? They appear to have an arrangement which appears to be very similar to Public Lending Rights - yet they're being challenged. What on earth could be wrong with making available books which would otherwise not be available (except from libraries if they happen to have them)?

I've had this problem for a long time. Work on the book I've been writing for donkey's years now has been helped tremendously by a published translation of an early medieval document - the cartulary of the local monastery - the original of which is held by the British Library. The translation itself is out of print, took me two years to find, and it cost me a small fortune to get what I think may have been the last remaining copy mouldering on the shelves of a somewhat esoteric historical society. I've traced the route the original document took to end up with the BL, and there is no way that they could morally claim to be its owner (it was stolen in the eighteenth century and bequeathed to the Harleian collection by the thief). However, that means that I can't check the translation without either travelling to London armed with a reader's ticket or paying through the nose (and I mean REALLY through the nose) for reproduction pages. The cartulary originated in this village and stayed in this village after the Dissolution - it's part of this village's history. But if I want to show the residents of this village an important part of their history, I'm met with money-grabbing jobsworth attitudes.

OK - rant over. But as far as I'm concerned, the sooner this whole rigmarole is sorted the better. I'm all for protecting the copyright interests of a living author - but there it should end. As the author of my particular document was a fourteenth-century monk, I see no reason why the British Library should continue to profit.

Oh - the rant wasn't quite over

More power to Google Books!!!!!!!!!!!

Mike

[wulf]

You can have an amen from me on that. I think something like 50 years or until authors death + 20 years (whichever is shorter) should be more than enough. Those works which are famous enough to really be widely desired after that will have amply paid their way by that point. How many people truly create something worthwhile that isn't strongly influenced by what gone before? Surely a limited copyright period should encourage continued creativity rather than stifling it?

If there should be any restriction on usage of works after a reasonable amount of time, perhaps it should be a tax administered by the country of the author, which is monitored to ensure that it goes towards keeping that work (and other less famous peers) available for the common intellectual and cultural good?

Wulf