- First, Google abandoned its original plan to digitize books in order to provide online searching. …
- The business plan led to a second misstep, because it included a dubious opt-out clause. …
- Third, in setting terms for the digitization of orphan books—copyrighted works whose rights holders are not known—the settlement eliminated the possibility of competition. …
- Fourth, rights held by authors and publishers located outside the United States raised similar problems. …
- Fifth, the settlement was an attempt to resolve a class action suit, but the plaintiffs did not adequately represent the class to which they belonged. …
- Sixth, in the course of administering its sales, both of individual books and of access to its data base by means of institutional subscriptions, Google might abuse readers’ privacy by accumulating information about their behavior. …
In short, the collapse of the settlement has a great deal to teach us. It should help us emulate the positive aspects of Google Book Search and avoid the pitfalls that made Google’s enterprise flawed from the beginning. The best way to do so and to provide the American people with what they need in order to thrive in the new information age is to create a Digital Public Library of America.
Der ganze Beitrag: http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/mar/28/six-reasons-google-books-failed/