Quote:
Originally Posted by Taylor514ce
Quite the opposite. Please carefully re-read my posts, if you choose. I am very cognizant that Google avoided judgment by means of this settlement. Make of that what you will. My opinion is that, knowing that they faced an adverse judgment, and not wanting to allow a precedent that undermines their entire business model, they chose instead to settle.
I've carefully read your posts, and it boils down to "we'll never know". Whatever you or I think about Google's actions and the impact on compensation and author's rights, it's very clear how the Authors Guild, publishers, and by extension authors, felt about it.
And, as long as Google can simply buy their way out of legal judgment, arguing the legality of their actions is moot.
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Sorry for jumping into this thread so late. That being said, I think it is important to remember that both sides have to agree to a settlement. Considering the stakes involved, I expect both sides settled because neither side wanted to take the chance that the settlement would go against them. Ultimately, I suspect that the Authors Guild recognized that a protracted fight on their part could not only go against them in the courts but could go against them in the court of public opinion (and maybe also in the court of authors whose works are out of print). Being that Google was not offering full books up on the internet, but only portions there of, this was definitely an area that fell into the legitimate realm of fair use. How the court might have decided would have ended up secondary to the fact that the public has been increasingly seeing media providers as being bullies.
One other thought... I would be very careful about claiming that the Authors Guild represented the authors. Certainly their position represents that of some authors, but it may not even represent the positions of all the authors who are members. Certainly there are some authors (for example ones who are taking advantage of the Creative Commons License) who believe that books should be more available than current copyright laws mandate.
One last thought. Was Google on shaky ground legally? I think the answer is an absolute yes. However, it was not clearly violating the law. The basic problem with fair use is that it essentially requires testing, more or less continually, to establish what constitutes fair use and what does not. Essentially it is the ultimate in "Better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission". So long as Google was not clearly violating copyright, it was up to the Authors Guild and the Publishers to decide they wanted to pursue the issue and for the courts to decide on whether or not it was legal. Google and the Authors guild both blinked so the question is still open legally.
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Bill