http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/googlebooks/Main_Page

quote:

The proposed Google Book Search settlement creates the opportunity for
unprecedented access by the public, scholars, libraries and others to
a digital library containing millions of books assembled by major
research libraries. But the settlement is controversial, in large part
because this access is limited in major ways: instead of being truly
open, this new digital library will be controlled by a single company,
Google, and a newly created Book Rights Registry consisting of
representatives of authors and publishers; it will include millions of
so-called “orphan works” that cannot legally be included in any
competing digitization and access effort, and it will be available to
readers only in the United States. It need not have been this way.

This workshop seeks to bring a fresh, unique perspective to a complex
and widely debated topic. It will focus not on the specific merits and
demerits of the settlement itself, or the particular antitrust and
privacy and other objections that have been raised. Instead, it will
examine the idea of possible alternative universes and offer specific
proposals for scenarios that may arise whether or not the settlement
is approved. What can libraries, or universities, or non-profits, or
Congress, do in the current landscape? And how might these
possibilities help us to define a better world than the one that we
have today and, more importantly, than the one that will exist if the
Google settlement is approved in its current form? Regardless of what
happens with respect to the Settlement, what alternative possibilities
could lead to a richer, more open and better information ecosystem
than the one we have today or might have tomorrow with the Settlement?

By exploring these alternatives, this workshop seeks, in the end, to
help inform the debate over the Settlement and its terms and to
illuminate some of the key policy considerations that are at stake.
Its ultimate goal is to develop a series of options and proposals that
could improve on the status quo in novel ways.

end of quote

***************************************************************************
Manon Ress
manon.ress@keionline.org
Knowledge Ecology International
1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20009 USA
Tel.:  +1.202.332.2670, Fax: +1.202.332.2673






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