Google, after being sued by the Author’s Guild for $125 million , has reached an agreement that has peeked my interest quite a bit: They’ve formed a license with the Author’s Guild that will allow Google to create full copies of many books to be available online. Actually, more accurately, Google will be able to put full copies of millions of books online – even if they’re still under copyright.
Now, I admit to being a bit opinionated when it comes to this sort of a thing (imagine that, I’m blogging about it). So, I’d like to take a brief moment to analyze that from my perspective. What this means for society, is that millions of books will be accessible to the public at large to search through, to read, to learn from, and to enjoy. It also appears that authors will be able to share in the revenues for this system as well, which means the creators still get paid, and the public at large will be able to access a huge resource of information.
If you notice throughout history, the level of access people have to information has a tendency to go up greatly as societies advance. As more people are educated, able to learn, and able to access resources, society benefits as a whole. That is why this news is particularly great to see. I certainly know I’ll be happy to have the ability to have access to all of that material.
