Comments on: Google Library angers academics

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Wed, 25 May 2005 01:52:27 +0000

The evolution of technology would be further along today if more people had the ability to care about humans as humans, and not humans as profit generators. As we travel into every century, some things must be left behind. What if doctors held so much power that it was still standard practice to drill a hole in one’s skull due to headaches? It was no longer in line with the current level of knowledge painfully achieved and documented by those who were not satisfied with the stauts quo. Unfortunately, progress is synonymous with change.

To move forward, some things must be left behind. There will come a time when copyright is a forgotten thing of the past. There will be profiteering rules in place, but individual’s access to ‘intelectual property’ will be unlimited. The only way to turn back the clock on that is to stop the progression of computer technology. Mankind has always dreamed about all of the accumulated knowledge of the world available at one personal terminal. If every genius can save time in his accumulation of the previous unraveled secrets, imagine how quickly he can begin to change the world with his additions to the knowledge stockpile.

At some point, humans as a whole will have to decide whether personal profit, or the better good will be served by law aand business. Poverty could be wiped out, but no one wants to help the “lazy” or “weak.” Most say, “why should I help him, no one helped me.” Everyone could have the food and shelter needed, if greed wasn’t the deep rooted world evil. An evil that demonizes thinkgs like sharing culture with the world for free.

This course of action will likely come in the form of revolution. Enough people will eventually get tired of the negative effect that profit-mongers have on all our lives. Bad air, housing “projects,” contaminated water, space debris, nuclear waste, and deplete ozone are largely prducts of someone’s want of money. Those with money usually have the guns, so it will probably be a very long time before wisdom triumphs over profit.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Wed, 25 May 2005 00:22:24 +0000

Just adding an additional link:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050523/ap_en_bu/google_library_copyrights

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Tue, 24 May 2005 21:40:44 +0000

It should be interesting to see how this plays out.
I’m all for the digital library idea. This isn’t new since there is at least one organisation I know of that has scanned millions of pages of printed academic journals to make them readily available online. I am sure that this was done with the permission of the publishers (I am equally sure this was not done with the permission of the academics who wrote the articles, though most don’t care).

What I hate about this idea is that it is very likely that Google isn’t doing this to make them available to the public, but rather so this will be a subscription or spyware supported service sometime in the future. Google is big and ugly enough already, we do not need another huge corporation that owns online libraries. People should be smart enough to realize that corporations are never altruistic. This is one instance where I am on the side of the publishers. I had hoped they have enough sense to make the information available online themselves. At this late stage they have no choice but to finally drag themselves into the computer age.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Tue, 24 May 2005 20:52:59 +0000

Sorry Mr. Givler, but mere copying alone does not infringement make. It’s what one does with the copy (or copies) that determines if infringement has occured.