One of the things I really enjoyed about the Internet Archive Open Library project was the software they used to attempting to determine whether works they were scanning were or were not under copyright. It was an elaborate set of questions and answers with access to some copyright databases. In contrast, unless I’m mistaken, Google Books just draws a line at 1923 and assumes everything after that date is in copyright. This includes government information which as you know is made with tax dollars and generally in the public domain. So why does Google Book Search treat all post-1923 books as under copyright? Just over-cautious?
3 thoughts on “google book search, what about govdocs?”
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I think they’re aware of the problem, but because they’ve lumped all of the books in together they haven’t yet found a way to separate the non-copyrighted material from everything else. I know that the Michigan folks have raised this issue w/Google…
It will take Google years to get all that material scanned. They have plenty of time before they have to find a way to deal with post-1923 copyright issues.
this is a big market, but it seems that google has not get a right way to get the money.