Media or publishing issues: Libraries Warn of Censorship, Privacy, Cost in Google’s Digital Library

Books are usually able to be obtained from the University campus or the Government library or also in the public library. But thanks to the help of technology, books are being able to be access in the Internet.

The Real-life library

Source: Google (2009)

There are many types of online library that th Internet have but the most exclusive library would be known as Google and Google Scholar. According to Scholar (2009), Google scholar is known to provide a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. In addition, one of the main features is the "search engine that helps the users to look across articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions from academic publisher until other websites to provide the users in finding the relevant work across the world of scholarly research" (Scholar, 2009).

The new online library

Source: Google (2009)

Many authors have been filing copyright of authors against the online libraries. Copyright is known as the legal right granted to the author or the original creator of a product to be publish, produce and sale (Answers.com, 2009). Copyright is one of the issues that online libraries might face for the present time and future. But according to Thomas (2009), copyright is only to protect the works of an author but not to have the restriction of publishing.

According to Snyder (2008), Google are able to publish 20% of the entire text of a copyright protected book after Google made a deal with the authors and the publishers by creating "Book Right Registry" to settle the law-suit over its book-scanning project. But according to Singel (2009), it seems that the nation's library association have gone on strike again by saying that the deal by giving Google the control to millions of digitized books might cause the issues of censorship, price of having copyright online and privacy of readers would be breached.

From my opinion, every services made by any firms would tend to rip out some profit from their investors. For example, the "Book Right Registry" that was created by Google is to banish the copyright law of the original books as the authors are able to publish their books online and able to rip the profits from the Internet advertising and also the sales of online books from Google. It is just the beginning of the process to start up the "Book Right Registry". Thus, I believe that the authors will lose out a big time if the authors were to pull out from the Google's plan in registering books online.

List of References:

Answers.com 2009, Copyright, Britannica Concise Encylopedia, Answers Corporation, viewed on 22nd of November 2009,

<http://www.answers.com/topic/copyright>

Scholar, G. 2009, About Google Scholar, Google, viewed on 23rd of November 2009,

<http://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/about.html>

Singel, R. 2009, Epic Center: Libraries Warn of Censorship, Privacy, Cost in Google's Digital Library, Wired.com, viewed on 22nd of November 2009,

<http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/05/libraries-warn-of-censorship-privacy-cost-in-googles-digital-library/>

Snyder, C. 2008, Epic Center: Google, Authors and Publishers Settle Bool-Scan Suit, Wired.com, viewed on 23rd of November 2009,

<http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2008/10/google-authors/#previouspost>

Thomas, G., F., Jr. 2009, Copyright on the Internet: Copyright is to exclude not to publish, Franklin Pierce Law Center, viewed on 23rd of November 2009,

<http://www.piercelaw.edu/thomasfield/ipbasics/copyright-on-the-internet.php>