A Fire on the Plain is a post by Peter Brantley of the University of California that relates the essence of conversations he has had with several rightsholders who were part of the Google Book Search negotiations. An exerpt:
From the rightsholders’ perspective, one terminal per library, instead of being stingy, quivered with profligacy. I heard remarked by several individuals (and often enough now to feel it corroborated) that indeed this concession started out far more restricted: either no public access, or starkly limited access – perhaps apocryphally, a single terminal in each State capitol, or one terminal in each city. In short, it was impressed upon me that libraries were lucky to get as much as they did.
As I understand it, rightsholders feared that having unhindered access to books online at libraries might (among other issues) encourage libraries to decelerate buying print books, thereby reducing royalties to authors and profits to publishers. In this equation, more public access = less revenue.
This is not a good sign. If this is applicable to rightsholders as a group (and be mindful that this is an incredibly small sample of opinion), then the resistance of publishers and other rightsholders is going to increase exponentially when we finally get an e-book reader that becomes the equivalent of what the I-Pod was to e-audio. Libraries and other organizations need to ensure that Fair Use is respected (and utilized), and that there is a broad understanding of the changes happening to media and culture.
found via Open Access News
