What people say about Google digital book monopoly intentions, as the case goes to NY court
Google is about to face objectors in a New York court over its plans to create the world’s biggest digital books monopoly
A single judge, Denny Chin, is about hold a hearing concerning the arguments for and against a contentious deal between the Internet Goliath, Google (dubbed the Internet leading mafia family), and US authors and publishers, some 26 interested parties.
The intelligent consensus is that the deal would provide the search Goliath with a monopoly over online books sales [and the “right” to screw the authors.]
Here’s what people say:
“I’m afraid an awful lot of writers have not really informed themselves. You know, we tend to be sort of busy doing our writing and sort of feeling that if we belong to a group like Authors Guild or something, that they’ll look after it and sort of see to it that our rights aren’t infringed to the point where we can’t make a living any longer.” Noted author and GBS objector Ursula Le Guin in her extended interview with the PBS NewsHour Art Beat Blog.
“I do think all the books in the world should be digitised but I think it is completely wrong to give one huge company control of that huge database and this is a very very important matter.” —John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog
“This de facto exclusive licence will provide Google with an enormous advantage over its search competitors.” —Open Book Alliance
“Content that can be discovered by only one search engine offers that search engine some protection from competition. This outcome has not been achieved by a technological advance in search or by operation of normal market forces; rather, it is the direct product of scanning millions of books without the copyright holders’ consent.” —The Justice Department
“Google already processes about two-thirds of the search requests in the United States, an advantage that led the company to rake in $79 billion in revenue during the past five years — mostly from short ads posted alongside search results and other Web content. ” —The Associated Press.
Google says their motto is “Do No Evil!” yet most of their immoral earnings come from predatory advertising, and their corporate practice is suppression of information!
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