Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Are books on google good for us?

Santosh Desai holds forth on the latest contoversy in The Financial Express.

The recent court action that a group of 15 Indian authors and publishers have initiated against Google Books raises some interesting issues. The court action is a reflection of the concern felt by a large section of the Indian publishing industry about what they see as a concerted effort by the company to subvert copyright laws in India. In particular, what has caused great consternation is the ‘opt out’ clause, which places the burden of objection on the author. This essentially means that Google Books is free to scan anything it feels like, and unless the author objects, this lack of overt reaction is deemed to be a form of consent, allowing the company to go ahead.

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