Last week I received a very fascinating legal notice in the mail. It was a notice from a European law firm regarding a gigantic class action suit against internet giant, Google, regarding the copying and proliferation of copyrighted materials . . . including some of my books. Now, I'm not a legal expert, but I have been reading a great deal about this recently in books, newspaper, and op-ed pieces . . . even blogs. It is a subject being discussed among writers everywhere.
And here's the question: Can pages out of a copyrighted entity be digitalized, copied and posted on the internet for the taking?
Google claims that these postings only serve to help book sales and make an author's work more readily available to an adoring public. Many writers claim that this is an infraction of copyright law and that writers, publishers and such should be compensated for digitalized pages that are distributed across the internet.
It's a large question and one that has far-reaching implications for the future of publishing (in all forms) and the meaning and significance of publishing in general. My decision now is whether or not I want to "put my name" in the class action hat which could lead, conceivably, to some compensation from Mr. Google himself.
What do you think?
1 comment:
The problem here lies in the nature of a man. Personally, I think that money ruins everything. It is my nature to want people to enjoy what I do: I want people to enjoy what I write. I even want my clients at work to just enjoy the fact that I fix things for them. My nature would say, in your situation, "No one meant any harm, they just enjoyed my writing and I am glad for that."
But looking on your situation, I want people to respect you and not just enjoy, for free, what you write.
Therefore, I think you should join the suit. You write enough things, like this blog, for people to enjoy for free, for themselves.
mw
Post a Comment