Yeah. Have you been reading this thread from the beginning?
I have a poor short-term memory. So, well, what Google
should be doing is just getting a copy of the works in question, accepting donations, allowing authors to sign up/etc. Whatever.
I've never been particularly pro-Google this entire discussion. If they've got copies of the books in question, I can't see how what they're doing would be wrong. However, if they don't, then the project better
explicitly have some library's named attached to it (where they're getting the books).
Suing someone has to to with repairing damage that has been done to the suer, monetary or otherwise, through disobedience to the law by the suee.
You overestimate our legal system. Criminals have sued those they were burglurizing, etc., but that aside, suing is a legal way of stealing from Peter to pay Paul, if the Judge feels that Peter, for whatever reason (whatever damages or obligation), should pay Paul.
You'll have to explain that one again.
Easy. All printed works are
protected by copyright laws, but are unregistered. In order to register a copyright you have to send it in with a fee. Today, this is generally considered unnecessary. However, it hasn't been too long since you had to register every copyrighted work in order to have it covered, and only some 15 years ago a work wasn't protected if it lacked the copyright (©) symbol.
How about 50/ +10 and then give the author's heirs the option to keep up the copyright through a minimal fee.
I'm personally of the opinion that it's of more worth to the Public Domain than it is for fattening one's heirs. I understand that others disagree with me in this, but I take after Carnegie (the name is significant for this discussion for two reasons).
I don't have it backwards it's simply that bad behavior is rampant on both sides. While it's unfortunate that copyright law is such a tangled mess nowadays, in my opinion, stated again, it would be worse were people given the right under the law to copy and profit from other people's work without giving them compensation.
No. Copyright laws have been expanded significantly in the past century, and
not once have they been reduced. There has been
nothing done through legislation in that direction. It is, as things stand, completely one-sided.
For the latter part of your comment, you over-generalize. Once again,
I support copyright. I do feel, however, that it needs to be much more limited than it now is.
Again, I don't condone what Google is doing since they don't own the books. However, if they managed to do this "as a service for" a library which did own the books, I would see no problem with it, as the library owns the books, and Google would merely be expanding that library's services.
FYI: You don't need to be local to benefit from, or even hold a card at, a library. In addition, my state, at least, has services where
anyone in the world can hop online and ask them Reference questions, etc., online. And I'm sure if they were to give a page and paragraph number, the Librarian would be quite willing to grab the book and type up a few sentences for them, if it would somehow help them out. Google would be merely automating that process (making it much easier on the librarians, and more convenient for the patrons).