Reading in Cyberspace, Threat or no Threat?

There are many ways one can view this topic. That being either in a negative perspective or a positive perspective. I am going to speak about both and try to stay positive. First of all isn’t going to the library to sign a book and read it free rather that give the author profit like someone also who bought it did? No it is not; therefore Google Book Search is exactly like an online library. This way putting it online makes it easier for everyone to “sign out”. For example if I wanted to get a book that was not in Agincourt library, but it was in North York. I do not want to go to a library that is not remote, so it would be perfectly normal for me to go to Google Book Search. It may present some people to easily plagiarize the book more, but that is already a wide problem that anyone experiences. Anybody who has put something online could be stolen, hacked, or plagiarized; even what you are reading right now.

Isnt digitizing copyrighted content from a book, even a book that is available for borrowing from a library, and making said content freely available to anyone who searches for it using Google, it is no different to the P2P sharing of illegally copied MP3 tracks. Some view it as a piracy of books, and all piracy no matter what is illegal. Google has been sued for doing this project, and there are still people complaining. Publishers lose billions of sales, thus losing money because of it.

Some authors, however, should be grateful for any exposure their work can get. Publishers have long since given up spending any real money or making any real effort to get that exposure for small fry writers. Their best hope now lies with the online world, with the likes of Google Book Search.

There is always the danger that Google might change its mind further down the road and trample upon copyright issues, right royally screwing over authors in the process. However, I am pretty sure they are always are used to it, and to be honest it is no different to what the publishing giants have already done to them.

Signed,
Daniel