Lessig on Google Book Search - Fair Use?
Lessig has posted a video of a recent talk to his site that is currently being distributed via Bittorrent. Since some of you may not have a bt client, I decided to redistribute it via video.google.com which allows you to stream it. He covers the details of his arguments for Google, and as usual, pro innovation. The industry is simply never going to create a market for the out of print books, and we may loose vital historical and cultural information should these out of print books go to waste.
Fair Use is being eroded by a congress that does not seem to really know how and why CopyRight protection was created in the the first place. I can only hope that the reforms that will soon be coming forth due to the Abramoff case will stop the eroding of CopyRight, and especially the perpetual extensions of CopyRight terms that are also hurting our access to our own heritage.
Unlike libraries which carry books that are out of print, the same does not apply to video and audio content. The same large middle-section of “out of print books” applies to out of print music and films. These recordings, unlike books (if a copy still exists) are on media that are turning into dust simply because there is no public library for them, they are only digitized and kept alive if the companies that own the last copies spend money to keep them alive.
I don’t understand why so many in congress do not seem to understand the value in this set of intellectual property that is going to waste. When a company comes along to challenge an entire industry, they should not be shut out simply because they found a way to make money legally off of something that was being eroded by an entire industry.
