[WikiEN-l] Google Books class action lawsuit

[Anthony]

On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 4:17 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>wrote:

> 2009/9/5 Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com>:
> > On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 3:35 PM, Thomas Dalton<thomas.dalton at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> 2009/9/5  <WJhonson at aol.com>:
> >>> Charles a few things.
> >>>
> >>> You do not need to be in the US to read a Google Book.  There is a
> thing
> >>> called proxy or super proxy or something of that sort, which will mask
> where
> >>> you are, and thus allow anyone to read a book as if they were in the
> US.
> >>
> >> That is probably illegal, though.
> >
> > Or at least a violation of the Terms of Service.
>
> Contract violation *is* illegal.


Sort of.  If I go broke and fail to pay my mortgage, would you say I did
something illegal?  I'm not sure it's fair to refer to a mere breach of
contract as "illegal".


> (Assuming a website ToS is a binding contract - has that ever been tested
> in court?)


Personally I've taken to the argument that a ToS is a license.  It solves
the problem that the other party need not explicitly agree to it (but if
they don't agree to it they have no right to access the website), and it
solves the problem that minors are not bound by contracts.  But in that case
violation of a Terms of Service might actually be illegal, and *not* just a
breach of contract (similar to the way violation of a software license might
constitute copyright infringement and not just a breach of contract).

Not that it's likely you're going to get in any trouble for bypassing Google
Books restrictions through proxies.  To get back on topic, I don't think
there should be a link to Google Books at all.  The reference should be the
book.  If you want to mention "accessed through Google Books", fine.  But
the link should go to a generic page which potentially works with more sites
than just Google Books, like [[Special:BookSources]].