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  nonuser, 12 Dec 2005 @ 7:28pm

  
  

  publishers are paranoid...

  but not necessarily crazy. They're wary of letting Google or Yahoo! or Microsoft innovate with their content, because they realize that big money will flow to those who come up with innovative ways of packaging and presenting content, at the expense of those who rely on the old channels of media distribution. Nobody can imagine all the possible ways published works can be analyzed, sliced, and diced to meet consumer demand, but they probably fear that if they don't stop Google now, some of the more marketable portions of their IP may fall into the public domain.

  I agree that a service that uses a full-text search index to tell you that a book called "The Hobbit" matches the words "Frodo Baggins", probably represents fair use of the book. But does anyone think that Google plans to stop there, and not proceed to push the envelope with scanned content?

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  Andrew Strasser, 12 Dec 2005 @ 9:39pm

  
  

  Scans are fine and dandy...

  Still too hard to read. They are getting closer and will continue to. You can't expect everyone to stay dumb forever. Though, I must say our current president and his gas buddies seem to have some master plan that seems to be working. How did it get more expensive to send natural gas through pipelines from our own mountains?
  
  Totally off subject, but as I said earlier:
  
  This task seems best suited to a (ahem tax writeoffable) public library type of system.
  

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  Jake Lockley, 13 Dec 2005 @ 1:57am

  
  

  Brilliant!

  The first smart company to come along. The smart companies know Google makes their money off their ability to scan content, write search algorithms, and sell targeted advertising based on those algorithms. The smart companies will protect their data from Google and sell it themselves. Harper Collins is owned by Rupert Murdoch who owns Newscorp, Fox, BSkyB, IGN, Gamespy, MySpace, TVGuide... so needless to say they have the capability to sell their own ads and targeted marketing data.

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  • 

    giafly, 13 Dec 2005 @ 3:13am

    
    

    Re: Brilliant!

    I agree. Also they'll own the copyright on each new digital version and can in effect restart its "copyright clock", whenever they like, by replacing it with an "improved" one.
    This is the same trick as music companies play with "digitally remastered" CDs.

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    Anonymous Coward, 13 Dec 2005 @ 6:58am

    
    

    Re: Brilliant!

    well... HarperCollins said they'll give search engines the ability to search the databases anyway... so, assuming they do scan the entire books, Google will have the same access to the content as before. HarperCollins just gets to say its theirs and not Google's. The only power they'll really have is whether they pull some books out of the database. To me, it sounds like a stupid move. Google would have done it for free while HarperCollins now paid millions to do so. Google is coming out ahead of this. HarperCollins just did all the work for them.

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