

Google defends its actions in a new legal brief










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RE: Huh?
By omnicronx on 2/16/2010 12:09:25 PM , Rating: 2
This is the same way patents work. The patent holder has to keep up with and enforce their patent (by suing the infringing party.) They don’t have the law actively looking out and enforcing their patent without having to do any work.
Alrighty then, so by your logic ALL illegally downloaded MP3's are perfectly legal until you are caught. I even have the right to distribute them without repercussion until I am asked to stop!

Please explain to me this scenario is any different? The only difference here is that most of these authors are not asking for money, they just don't want Google to post their books without asking, or at the very least make it an easy process to have them removed.

If Google was posting music without consent, they would be sued. If they started selling the music for profit (whether that be directly or by advertising money being made), they would be sent back to the stone-age. So please explain to me why they should be allowed to do this with books?

I'm not saying they should have to ask every single author (the big problem here is that many of the works are old, and the publishers/copyright holders cannot be found), but they should at least have to try and investigate before they post content. They will already have the data required to do such a check to put the book online in the first place, so there is no reason why they cannot do this.. well aside from the fact it will take them longer to deploy, but that's their problem, not the authors.

