German Chancellor Against Google Book Project... Leaves Out That Germany Tried Funding A Competitor
from the just-saying... dept
German Chancellor Angela Merkel got plenty of attention over the weekend for speaking out against the Google Book settlement, making some odd claims that suggest she's not particularly familiar with what the debate is actually about:"The German government has a clear position: copyrights have to be protected in the Internet," Merkel said, adding there are "considerable dangers" for copyright protection in the Internet.But... what Google's doing is not about scanning books "without any copyright protection." That's a fabrication. Hell, even a German court ruled that Google's book scanning project doesn't violate copyright. You would think that Merkel would be familiar with rulings in her own country. Separately, it seems worth noting that at one point, Germany was heavily involved in Quearo, a European project that was originally designed to compete with Google's book scanning project. While Germany eventually dropped out of that program, it's difficult to claim that Merkel is an unbiased party in this matter, as her government at least initially supported a project to compete with Google in scanning books.
"That's why we reject the scanning in of books without any copyright protection -- like Google is doing. The government places a lot of weight on this position on copyrights to protect writers in Germany."
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Filed Under: angela merkel, book scanning, copyright, europe, germany
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Well, that and the whole killing 26 million people thing.
...but mostly it's this.
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Why am I not surprised?
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It was 46 million, asshole.
Don't forget.
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It happened, we all know it happened.
Move on.
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But hey, your numbers could be right too...
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Maybe that's why the Russians have some anti-semitic ownership laws, nobody is going to screw our motherland again any which way.
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what i cant stand is when someone makes an OBVIOUS off-hand remark that was clearly not intended to be taken as factual and someone else goes completely APENUTZ about it showing their total lack of ability to put things into perspective.
especially when neither the initial off-hand remark and the subsequent apenuttery have anything to do with the topic at hand.
argue your completely irrelevant to the actual subject at hand numbers elsewhere and lets get back to focusing on yet another clueless politician spewing completely incorrect information while not disclosing that they were backing a competing project to begin with. i would like to know if quearo had any kind of DRM/copyrights management to it either.
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Afghanistan.s run-off
Akhtar Qassimyar, MD
16829 silver Crest Drive
San Diego, California 92127
(858) 212-7026
e-mail: akhtarkassimyar@yahoo.com
THE AFGHAN PEOPLE’S RESPONSE TO THE INVADERS’ RUN-OFF DRAMA IN AFGHANISTAN
Afghan people are well-aware of the fact that the current run-off between Hamid Karzai and Abdullah is just a political drama played by the invaders in Afghanistan on the ground that both Karzai and Abdullah are exactly the same twin for the reasons state forth as follows:
1- Both Hamid Karzai and Abdullah are from those warlords who were involved in treason in collaborating with the invaders to occupy Afghanistan in 2001, in the exchange for 70 million dollars given by Bush administration prior to invasion of Afghanistan.
2- Karzai and Abdullah were installed by the foreign invaders as president and foreign minister respectively as soon as Afghanistan was occupied in 2001.
3- Both Hamid Karzai and Abdullah represent the most corrupted Kabul government which is made from the Northern Alliance warlords and drug dealers, and has been supported by the United States and its allies since the invasion in 2001.
4- Both Hamid Karzai and Abdullah represent the Kabul MAFIA government which is directly involved in drug production and drug trafficking in the past eight years and supported by the United States and its allies since the invasion in 2001.
5- Both Hamid Karzai and the self-proclaimed doctor, Mr. Abdullah were poor men before the Afghanistan’s invasion in 2001. Under the watch of the invaders, both Hamid Karzai and Abdullah become multi-millionaires during the past eight years because of their involvement in Afghan drug trafficking and stealing the international aid money pouring to Afghanistan.
6- Both Hamid Karzai and Abdullah are the Washington’s most trusted men who have been working for the interest of invaders in Afghanistan since 2001.
7- Under the watch of their foreign masters, both Hamid Karzai and Abdullah committed felony during the August 20th election on the ground that both were involved in massive election fraud of millions of stolen and fraudulent votes.
Based on the foregoing, both Hamid Karzai and Abdullah should be prosecuted for the major crimes of massive fraud during the August 20th election. Both Hamid Karzai and Abdullah are two felons and do not deserve a run-off.
As common sense, run-off should be held between those two innocent Afghan presidential candidates who acquired the top first and second positions without committing fraud during the August 20th election. But Afghanistan people firmly believe that regardless of the massive election fraud, the run-off drama will be between Hamid karzai and Abdullah, because these two felons are the choice of the invaders to rule the country.
The foreign invaders should realize the fact that the days of either Hamid Karzai or Abdullah government will be numbered as soon as the foreign troops leave Afghanistan and the Northern Alliance warlord government of Kabul will be hidden in caves as they were hidden before the invasion in 2001. So for their own interest, it would be better for the foreign invaders to decrease their imperial greed for Afghanistan in order to make a relatively stable and credible government in Kabul which will be able to stand without the foreign military help. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Akhtar Qassimyar, MD
This letter will be forwarded to President Obama, NATO leaders and other relevant authorities.
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