I-Boooks

Google and the publishing industry have finally reached an agreement over Google Books. My first reaction is that this is great, revolutionary, will change the way people read forever etc. However, I do wonder how Google will determine the prices for each book they scan and if this will make financial sense for authors. A reader of the Information Weekly voices his concerns:

In the end, the Author's Guild capitulated. The result sets up a meager $35m dollar fund for compensating authors victim of continuing Google copyright infringement practices. And now copyright violations are winked at, putting the onus officially on the Authors/Publishers to have their works removed from Google Books.

This is not how copyright protection is supposed to work, and it's not how legislation is supposed to work. I don't like big business forcing change down people's throats by blatantly breaking laws, forcing a judicial ruling, instead of legislation by congress. If Google wanted to do this project, the proper way is to ask congress to legislate modification to the copyright laws. Then the congress could properly weigh the merits and legislate for the benefit of all parties.

Instead Google forces the judicial hand and we get legal precedent, and essentially copyright legislation, from the negotiated settlement between a David and Goliath.
So now Google gets a pass on systematic widespread illegal copyright infringement because the Author's Guild were forced to capitulate? It's still illegal!!! Why is the US Attorneys Office sitting on their hands? Private parties cannot be allowed to negotiate between themselves how they will obey law. Google should be roundly punished, Google Books should be suspended, and the matter should be turned over to congress to decide if and what modification to copyright law is needed.