February 13, 2007
DOUBLE DEUTSCH:
Google Book-Scanning Efforts Spark Debate (MICHAEL LIEDTKE, 12/20/06, The Associated Press)
A splinter group called the Open Content Alliance favors a less restrictive approach to prevent mankind's accumulated knowledge from being controlled by a commercial entity, even if it's a company like Google that has embraced "Don't Be Evil" as its creed."You are talking about the fruits of our civilization and culture. You want to keep it open and certainly don't want any company to enclose it," said Doron Weber, program director of public understanding of science and technology for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
The New York-based foundation on Wednesday will announce a $1 million grant to the Internet Archive, a leader in the Open Content Alliance, to help pay for digital copies of collections owned by the Boston Public Library, the Getty Research Institute, the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The works to be scanned include the personal library of John Adams, the nation's second president, and thousands of images from the Metropolitan Museum.
As both Genesis and Physics tell us, this is simply fulfilling our purpose. Posted by Orrin Judd at February 13, 2007 9:07 AM
Hasn't Project Gutenberg been doing this for almost 40 years?
Both copyright and patent should not go beyond 5 years. We all know about the "value" of creating temporary monopolies, but not about value of throwing it in public domain for all to use.
We have no idea of the value that might be created or the knowledge that might be integrated faster.
Test the 5 year limit and see how it works. Copyright in particular is obscenely long.