Google Books is very misunderstood
Given the distrust of publishers and French politicians, the American firm seeks an operation … Seduction
Between Google and France, the dialogue seems difficult. While the French publishers do not want to hear about Google Books and the Minister of Culture Frederic Mitterrand and the head of state Nicolas Sarkozy has publicly expressed their fears, Google tries to reassure on its intentions.
According to Marissa Mayer, the No. 3 group came to Paris to participate in Web 09, Google Books is “a service is very misunderstood,” whose goal is “just the conservation of heritage,” she told TF1 news. “Every day, the latest version of a book can disappear in a fire, flood or has just finished the trash, make sure it does. Google Books is a huge advantage for the preservation of culture. ”
Google still needs convincing. For several weeks, Frederic Mitterrand and Nicolas Sarkozy multiply statements hostile to the U.S.. “On the digitization of our heritage, it is not about to let us rob our heritage for the benefit of an operator, as nice as he is American,” stressed the head of state not later than Tuesday on the sidelines of a roundtable in Alsace.
For his part, Minister of Culture has already expressed its wish to see a leading private-public partnership, why not with Google, subject to state control.
Private or public, or both, the choice is not arrested by the government and actors of the French edition. The commission must submit Tessier mid-December its proposals on the digitization of Frederic Mitterrand and Nicolas Sarkozy. The only certainty is Google “the company has the most advanced on the subject,” as she likes to remind Marissa Mayer.
If Google is engaged in digitization to facilitate the conservation of heritage, why do they take ownership of the content they digitize with the intention of selling back to the public, or institutions.
Another thing to consider is their quality or really their lack of quality. I have looked through countless books that have been digitized by Google. There are pages missing, hands covering half the content on pages etc. If they were truly concerned with “conserving heritage” they would be digitizing with a much higher level of quality and concern for the long tail.
Google is digitizing content to feed their search engine, and ultimately resell content back to the institutions that were duped into believing that they would retain the rights to their content.