Commentary by K. Matthew Dames, executive editor.

I have never met Michael Gorman, president of the American Library Association. I will assume, however, that someone within the Association has had time to brief Mr. Gorman on the key issues involved in the Google Print controversies since his June inauguration. Unfortunately, his comments in the Nov. 1 edition of The Wall Street Journal suggest he has not received (or ignored) such a briefing:

“I feel that this is a potential disaster on several levels,” said Michael Gorman, president of the American Library Association and university librarian at California State University, Fresno. “They are reducing scholarly texts to paragraphs. The point of a scholarly text is they are written to be read sequentially from beginning to end, making an argument and engaging you in dialogue.”

Mr. Gorman, who said the American Library Association doesn’t have an official position on the subject, described Google’s argument that Web users will be able to look at several snippets and then decide whether they want to buy or read the book as “ridiculous.” Further, he noted that as a published author, he opposes Google’s intention to build an enormous database that includes copyrighted texts. “It’s a flaunting of my intellectual property rights,” he said.

Mr. Gorman’s comments show a shocking naivete about his presidential post, a stunning lack of perspective and knowledge about the Google Print projects, and a disappointing waste of the influence the ALA could and should wield in this debate.

(more…)

“The old-school peer-to-peer network iMesh has left the murky world of illegal file swapping behind with the launch of a new service that enables users to share up to 2 million tracks from the four major record labels.

“The New York-based company is charging its 5 million users an a la carte fee of 99 cents to purchase a track, or $6.95 per month to gain unlimited access to the catalog.”

Niall McKay. Peer-to-Peer Goes Legit. Wired News. Nov. 3, 2005.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.