Rare Book Monthly
It's Time to Take a Look at Google Book Search
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This brings us back to the legal issues involved. As wonderful as access to these books is, far more post-1923 than pre-1923 material has been published. Most of this is long out of print. Copyrights have either expired, or are irrelevant to the holders. The holders are often virtually untraceable descendants of authors who do not even know they hold copyrights. It wouldn't matter to them if they did, as most obscure old works will never be reprinted for profit again. They have nothing to lose by Google giving new life to their ancestors' forgotten works. Still, Google is limited to publishing only small, unhelpful "snippets" of these works, and if some publishers have their way, not even that will be allowed. All of this access to knowledge is denied for the sake of copyright holders who neither know nor care about these rights, and who will never make another dime off of them. There needs to be protection for Google to make this material fully available to the public unless the copyright holders object. Perhaps a clearinghouse could be set up where older copyright holders could provide notice they still wish their rights to be respected. Google Book Search is quickly becoming an outstanding source of knowledge, available to the entire world. The law should not stand in the way. Copyright holders who actively wish to assert their rights deserve to be protected, but they should not be able to stand in the way of the dissemination of knowledge no one desires to restrict any longer.
You may test out Google Book Search for yourself through the following link: http://books.google.com.
