Gibson on Google
Monday, November 3rd, 2008 by Patrick Ross
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One of the Copyright Alliance’s academic advisors, James Gibson of the University of Richmond, had a perceptive editorial in The Washington Post today on the recent deal between Google and the publishers over the Google Book search service. Here was our reaction on the morning of the announcement, and here is Professor Gibson’s analysis.
Bottom line — what Google did was in its best interest, both when it launched its unauthorized service and when it settled the legal case. Now that is no surprise to anyone who follows the free market, but it had to be disappointing to those in favor of reducing artists’ rights who believed Google was using its billions to fight to redefine fair use much more broadly. That won’t happen now, at least not in this case, and in fact the settlement provides precedent in the market at least that licensing is appropriate with such duplication.
