2009/1/16 <WJhonson(a)aol.com>om>:
You know perfectly well this is a "theory"
of the law and the case law is
not clear.
Depends where you are.
And I hope you realize the chilling effect it gives to state that something
like Google Books has no protection for their out-of-copyright scans. That
Microsoft or whoever, can simply copy all of that material onto their own
servers and thumb their noses at Google.
Sure. Would take them forever though.
That is what you're saying.
That theory would effectively end anyone attempting to upload PD anything of
significant value.
Not really. Just because you have the content doesn't mean you are equal.
Sure people will upload little dribs and drabs but
we'll not be getting
thousands of pages of census, and hundreds of thousands of pages of documents,
maps, etc, since anyone like yourself can just copy the entire contents, rehost
them, and place your own ads on your own server and make money off doing
virtually nothing.
This is what you want to happen on the internet?
This sounds like a good thing to you?
Your problem is that you are forgetting a number of factors. First
there is the issue of first mover advantage. People get used to google
books before Microsoft has a chance to compete. Second there is the
issue of presentation. Microsoft can do all the mirroring they like
won't mean they can match Google's software. Lots of was to add value
with software.
Frequently the design of the software can make large scale harvesting
a near impossibility. Throw in some watermarking and mirroring your
stuff seems rather unattractive. Sure wikipedia might be prepared to
remove the watermark (sometimes for example only one image on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Sydney_Harbour has had the AWM
watermark removed) but most people won't and those that do won't be
able to on a large scale.
You mention census stuff but that is mostly a government thing.
Against that you have to consider that granting copyright in such
cases effectively allows someone who can limit the physical access to
the document to enjoy all the benefits of copyright even though they
didn't create it.
Sometimes the access control doesn't mean much. New popular edition
maps are cheap. So acquiring them to scan does not present a major
problem. Older less mass produced maps? 10K+. In effect you prevent
large parts of the public domain ever being meaningfully PD.
--
geni