Google digitizing all books

[Sasha Spektor]

Hi Sarah,
I'm sorry you find yourself in such a disadvantageous position:)  It's a
personal opinion of mine -- i think information should belong to everyone.
And it's not like google is stealing other people's ideas.  It's making them
accessible.  Wouldn't you want your work to be read in places where your
book cannot get to?  Let's even say that you can make some money by not
allowing google to scan it.  But you are not writing for money, aren't you?
You are writing to get tenure (unless you already have one), to express
yourself, to formulate new and exciting ideas, etc.  The advantages of
publishing work for academics are not monetary, or, at least, not in the
copyright way.  You can get famous, known; you could get a good job because
of your work, but it's unlikely that you would get paid for publishing it,
no?  Your finantial enumeration comes from being paid by the university on a
salary basis (I'm obviously assuming), not from publishing a book.  I'm
sitting here at home, preparing a lecture for tomorrow and if I could get
some additional information about it from scanned books on google, it would
make my life and the life of my students so much better.  That's a
utilitarian approach--and I'm not necessarily a proponent of one, but it
also works.  That google is a huge corporation doesn't change the fact
that--in my opinion--they are doing a truly amazing thing--a revolutionary
thing equal in status to the creation of internet itself--by creating a
digital library.  Objecting to that, I think, is similar to objecting to
Bill Gates's efforts to eradicate malaria.  And sure we can spend endless
hours arguing--Dmitry Nabokov-like--that the author has earned by his/her
hard labor the right to be paid for the work done.  But to extend this
argument to the publishing world of Slavists seems to me unnecessary.  Not
to deprive our esteemed colleagues of this discussion just because you've
exceeded the quota, I'm publishing this on Seelangs.  I just can't resist.
All the best,
S.

On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 9:28 PM, Sarah Hurst <sarahhurst at alaska.net> wrote:

>  Hi Sasha,
>
>
>
> I have exceeded my quota of messages today on SEELANGS, but I’d be
> interested to know why you think authors should give up their intellectual
> copyright and allow a big corporation to take their work and publish it. If
> you could add a clarifying message that would be good.
>
>
>
> Best regards,
>
>
>
> Sarah Hurst
>

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