MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Authors Guild and Google reach settlement: Millions of scanned books to be available.

Taylor514ce · 10-31-2008, 05:01 PM

You're right. I equate copyright infringement, on the scale practiced by Google (complete, systematic, wholescale) as tantamount to theft, in my moral rainbow. Others do not. Be that as it may, it is still odd to applaud Google for their actions, in this specific case (Book Registry, etc.), since those were not Google's actions. Those were actions Google was forced to make because of a legal settlement.

Google chose to ignore existing laws because they stood in the way of what they wanted to do.

You may feel the laws were unjust to start with, and that Google's goals were beneficent and consistent with your own. Surely you see the slippery slope, though, don't you? That might be true in this one instance, but doesn't it set a rather dangerous precedent? I'm not comfortable with that.

I'm glad that they were caught, sued, and forced to make amends, as rabidly ridiculous as that might seem.

10-31-2008, 05:01 PM	#44
Taylor514ce Actively passive. Posts: 2,042 Karma: 478376 Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: US Device: Sony PRS-505/LC	You're right. I equate copyright infringement, on the scale practiced by Google (complete, systematic, wholescale) as tantamount to theft, in my moral rainbow. Others do not. Be that as it may, it is still odd to applaud Google for their actions, in this specific case (Book Registry, etc.), since those were not Google's actions. Those were actions Google was forced to make because of a legal settlement. Google chose to ignore existing laws because they stood in the way of what they wanted to do. You may feel the laws were unjust to start with, and that Google's goals were beneficent and consistent with your own. Surely you see the slippery slope, though, don't you? That might be true in this one instance, but doesn't it set a rather dangerous precedent? I'm not comfortable with that. I'm glad that they were caught, sued, and forced to make amends, as rabidly ridiculous as that might seem.