Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
They still deserve to have their rights respected.
I'm no fan of the AG but on the "orphan" books land-grab Google is way out of line.
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I'm not saying that they don't deserve to have their rights respected. Just wondering how many of them are PD books as opposed to books that aren't PD yet. And of course how many of them are books that have been in obscurity due to people not even knowing that they exist prior to being scanned. I mean how many other authors wrote books at the same time as Charles Dickens for example? Probably hundreds I'd imagine. And many of them are pretty much forgotten I'd think as well. I'd guess even today the ratio of books that are known of to those that are out of print is a large one. Ebooks allow for such books to be available to everyone. So while there are some problems I'd imagine that there are some benefits as well. Ebooks themselves have been around for some 40 yrs or so (Michael Hart) but the new tech of the ereader is probably going to lead to a few rough spots as technology and law both evolve.