Librarians Express Concern Over Google Books 144
angry tapir writes "Many libraries routinely delete borrower information, and organizations such as the American Library Association have fought hard to preserve the privacy of their patrons in the face of laws such as the US Patriot Act. But now, as more and more titles become available in Google Book Search, it's not clear whether digital readers will enjoy the same privacy protections they have at the library."
Re:Question (Score:5, Informative)
Many libraries routinely delete information (Score:4, Informative)
They may of archived the information and removed it from the main databases but the information was still available for years after the event.
The most a library really needs to record are who are the last 2 people who checked out material, after that you there is no way of proving someone else damaged it. If you want metrics on the types or specific information on the number of check-outs that can be done without attaching a specific user to a piece of material.
Few places have a legal requirement that libraries store user information and if they did not store if beyond what is needed to track who has something checked out or could of damaged material they would not have problems in proving this information since it would not exist.
Anything to keep the status quo going... (Score:3, Informative)
"... But now, as more and more titles become available in Google Book Search, it's not clear whether digital readers will enjoy the same privacy protections they have at the library..."
Why not let users decide. If privacy concerns are paramount then users will not use Google Books. I am sure there is a sizable number of users who are not bothered by privacy concerns. These are probably the same folks who put all their lives on Facebook, 250 million strong to date.
"so called Copyright Libraries" (Score:3, Informative)
The term is Legal Deposit Libraries: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2003/ukpga_20030028_en_1 [opsi.gov.uk]
"Duty to deposit
1 Deposit of publications
(1) A person who publishes in the United Kingdom a work to which this Act applies must at his own expense deliver a copy of it to an address specified (generally or in a particular case) by any deposit library entitled to delivery under this section. "
Re:More Nonsense (Score:3, Informative)
The problem, as I've written before, is that the terms of Google's settlement were non-transferable. No one would object if there was a law passed giving a compulsory licensing model for out-of-print books, allowing anyone who wanted to go to the expense of digitising them to distribute them for a fixed fee. Unfortunately, at the moment Google is the only one who has these terms. Someone could produce something like Google Books and wait to be sued, hoping to get the same terms, but given that the maximum fine for this kind of infringement is $300,000 (statutory penalty, not related to loss of earnings) then it makes little sense for the class to settle. Given that the minimum fine is $750 per work, I and a lot of other authors would probably make more from the lawsuit than for any potential loss of earning if we didn't settle, so this market is impossible for any small players to enter.
Google are not heroes in this matter. They did not lobby for fairer copyright laws. They simply broke the existing laws on a massive scale and got a settlement that benefitted them but no one else.