Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Blog posts: Google Books Settlement at Columbia: Part 1 & 2

Peter Hirtle attended the one-day conference at Columbia University entitled The Google Books Settlement: What will it mean for the long-term? He has summarized the day's discussions in two blog posts:
In thinking about the settlement, Hirtle says:
We have a regulatory mechanism in place to ensure that works can be used in new and creative ways while at the same time respecting the rights of rights holders. It is called copyright law. The Google settlement may make the careful balances found in copyright law (as well as the public procedures to change it) moot, replacing them with private contractual arrangements instead.
And I like his closing line from Part 2:
In the interim, the settlement may be the best we can hope for - even though it has the potential to radically alter all of our worlds.
In between, he provides wisdom from the speakers and thoughts for us to ponder. These two posts are definitely worth reading.

By the way, it is very interesting is that the U.S. Copyright Office will not be providing any comments to the court on the settlement. I would have thought they would have been first in line to talk about whatever effects this could have on how the law is interpreted.


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