Quote:
Originally Posted by khalleron
Current copyright law is insane. Imagine if the drug companies had made the same push to get patents extended to the same length...?
|
That may be the case, but the settlement does not fundamentally change the current situation. All it does is reward Google for its massive "text grab" with all sorts of indefinite and potentially exclusive rights.
• It does not alter copyright length.
• It has nothing whatsoever to do with DRM.
• The Agreement does not transfer even a single text into public domain.
• It will allow Google nearly unlimited commercial rights over these texts. E.g. they've already indicated they want to sell restricted access to libraries, sell POD paper versions, and allow competitors access to the texts they scan for resale -- on Google's own terms, of course.
All it does is let Google abuse copyrights for their own commercial purposes. So what issue(s), exactly, does this fix?
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
There are thousands of movies languishing in storage closets, because the rightsholders to the soundtracks or scripts can't be found to get permission to convert them to digital formats.
|
H'm, forgot about that bit.
Unfortunately I'm not sure how "granting unlimited rights to the first person who digitizes an orphaned movie" is a viable solution, especially if the problem is that those rights are contested or in dispute (as opposed to an inability to locate the rights holder). Nor am I sure that the most equitable way to resolve the problem is via class action lawsuits.
By the way, is Google scanning Fanzines and theses? Are the theses typically copyrighted -- and really all that hard to find the ex-student?