DivX Clásico

Aunque frecuentemente son tomados como sinónimos, se prefiere el empleo del vocablo 'moral' para designar el conjunto de valores, normas y costumbres de un individuo o grupo humano determinado. Se reserva la palabra 'ética', en cambio, para aludir al intento racional (vale decir, filosófico) de fundamentar la moral entendida en cuanto fenómeno de la moralidad o ethos.

Pajarico escribió:Sabemos el punto de vista de las editoriales, ¿y google en qué se basa? ¿en que al estar disponibles en las bibliotecas pueden ser reproducidos? ¿en que son de dominio publico? ¿en el "fair use"?

Google Will Return to Scanning
Copyrighted Library Books
By KEVIN J. DELANEY and JEFFREY A. TRACHTENBERG
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 1, 2005; Page B1

Google Inc. will resume scanning copyrighted library books into its search engine after a self-imposed hiatus, despite the efforts of some publishers and authors to block it from doing so without the copyright holders' permission.

The Mountain View, Calif., company said it plans to resume scanning copyrighted books in the collections of Stanford University and the University of Michigan "soon." In August, amid a backlash by publishers, the company suspended its scanning of copyrighted books in libraries until today in order to give publishers time to request that their works not be scanned.

Google also said it will focus on scanning copyrighted works that are out of print and is seeking publishers' permission to digitize books that are still available new from bookstores. The company hadn't publicly disclosed that it was targeting out-of-print works for its initial scanning efforts although it says that was always its policy. That distinction could strengthen its argument that the project won't negatively affect book sales. But it isn't likely to lead the two groups suing Google over the Print Library Project to back down.

Google's renewed push is the latest move in a legal and philosophical battle over how copyright law applies to online content, a battle that could have ramifications for the future of the Internet and the publishing industry. Through its Print Library Project, which was announced in December, Google plans to put millions of library books through digital scanners that record images of each page. It will use those scans to let consumers search for keyword phrases within the text of books and see relevant portions of the text. The program is separate from the Google Print Publisher Program, under which publishers give permission for Google to make their books available through its search engine, providing Google with scans or books for it to scan. With that program, publishers can request that Google display only bibliographic information or a small excerpt of the text to users.
GOOGLE HITS THE BOOKS

Google's critics have objected to the company's plan to scan the library books without the authors' or publishers' permission, requiring copyright holders to proactively "opt out" of the scanning. At its core, the two sides are scrapping over the online application of "fair use," a legal doctrine allowing the use of copyrighted material for certain purposes, including teaching, research and news reporting. Some lawyers believe at least one of the lawsuits against Google could make its way through the legal system to the higher courts, eventually setting a precedent for fair use in the Internet age.

"We prefer to work with the publisher for in-copyright material," said Susan Wojcicki, a Google vice president for product management. She said that Google is first scanning books from library shelves that primarily contain out-of-print works, though some in-print books on such shelves could be included inadvertently. Because Google wants to be able to search all books, Ms. Wojcicki said it will eventually scan in-print material even when it doesn't have the author's or publisher's consent, though Google "would never show a full page without the right from a copyright holder."

Publishers and authors suing the company suggest that Google's focus on scanning out-of-print works isn't likely to soften their legal opposition to it. Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild, said his trade group doesn't intend to withdraw the suit it filed in September against Google in U.S. District Court in New York alleging that the search company is violating copyright.

"Books that are out of print frequently come back in print," said Mr. Aiken. "A university press or a smaller house may bring it back, or it may come back when the author publishes a new book with a major publisher."

"The fact that we filed suit shows how important the issue is to us," said Allan Adler, a lawyer at the Association of American Publishers, a trade group that last month filed suit on behalf of several members against Google, also in federal court in New York. "It may be unwise to make any significant change in our posture."

He noted that the issues surrounding books that are out of print but in copyright remain sticky. "This category is fraught with issues as to whether publishers can even say go ahead and use them because they may not have the rights," said Mr. Adler.

It isn't known just what percentage of library holdings fall into the category of being in copyright but out of print. About 18% of the books held by the libraries working with Google were printed prior to 1923 and are therefore in the public domain, according to an analysis by the Online Computer Library Center, a Dublin, Ohio, nonprofit library cooperative. An unknown percentage of the rest still are protected by copyright, depending on whether it was renewed.

Google's resumption of its scanning of copyrighted works comes amid heated debate in the library community over participation in the program. "We believe the Google project is a good and right thing, and that our participation is consistent with our role as an educational institution," said Andrew Herkovic, director of communications and development at the Stanford University Libraries. Stanford has provided Google with volumes that are in the public domain, but Mr. Herkovic declined to say whether the university has also provided copyrighted material to Google.

Other librarians say that what matters most is that people have as much access to information as possible. "We think that what Google is doing is legal and consistent with copyright law because copyright law is about striking a balance between the limited rights of the copyright owner and the long-term rights of the public," said John Wilkin, associate university librarian at the University of Michigan, which is making an estimated seven million volumes available.

But Google's actions have raised concerns among some librarians uneasy with the idea of creating ill will with publishers and authors. "In general I think that libraries need to observe copyright," said Tom Garnett, assistant director for Digital Library and Information Systems at the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, which are the libraries serving the Smithsonian Institution. Mr. Garnett said that the Smithsonian Institution Libraries will maintain a conservative stance until the disputes are resolved.

Other librarians are more strongly opposed to the Google project. "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.

Bscout escribió:CKDexterHaven te recomendaría que para definiciones de palabras que tienen un cierto contenido más ... digamos..."profundo", utilices otro diccionario que el de la RAE.

A library at your fingertips
Nov 4th 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda


Big technology companies have pledged to make many thousands of books available online. The commercial prospects look shaky, but this new front in the battle between the world’s leading internet portals will yield a valuable resource for all

A FEW years ago, at the height of the dotcom boom, it was widely assumed that a publishing revolution, in which the printed word would be supplanted by the computer screen, was just around the corner. It wasn’t: for many, there is still little to match the joy of cracking the spine of a good book and settling down for an hour or two of reading. But a recent flurry of activity by big technology companies—including Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo!—suggests that the dream of bringing books online is still very much alive.

The digitising of thousands of volumes of print is not without controversy. On Thursday November 3rd, Google, the world’s most popular search engine, posted a first instalment of books on Google Print, an initiative first mooted a year ago. This collaborative effort between Google and several of the world’s leading research libraries aims to make many thousands of books available to be searched and read online free of charge. Although the books included so far are not covered by copyright, the plan has attracted the ire of publishers.

Five large book firms are suing Google for violating copyright on material that it has scanned and, although out of print, is still protected by law. Google has said that it will only publish short extracts from material under copyright unless given express permission to publish more, but publishers are unconvinced. Ironically, many publishers are collaborating with Google on a separate venture, Google Print Publisher, which aims to give readers an online taste of books that are commercially available. The searchable collection of extracts and book information is intended to tempt readers to buy the complete books online or in print form.

Not to be outdone, Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, has unveiled plans for its own foray into the mass e-book market. The firm, which began ten years ago as an online book retailer, now sells a vast array of goods. No doubt piqued that Google, a relative newcomer, should impinge upon its central territory, Amazon revealed on Thursday that it would introduce two new services.

Amazon Pages will allow customers to search for key terms in selected books and then buy and read online whatever part they wish, from individual pages to chapters or complete works. Amazon Upgrade will give customers online access to books they have already purchased as hard copies. Customers are likely to have to pay around five cents a page, with the bulk going to the publisher.

Microsoft, too, has joined the online-book bandwagon. At the end of October, the software giant said it would spend around $200m to digitise texts, starting with 150,000 that are in the public domain, to avoid legal problems. It will do so in collaboration with the Open Content Alliance, a consortium of libraries and universities. (Yahoo! has pledged to make 18,000 books available online in conjunction with the same organisation.) And on Thursday, coincidentally the same day as Google and Amazon announced their initiatives, Microsoft released details of a deal with the British Library, the country’s main reference library, to digitise some 25m pages; these will be made available through MSN Book Search, which will be launched next year.

These companies are hoping for a return to the levels of interest in e-books seen when Stephen King, a bestselling horror writer, published “Riding the Bullet” exclusively on the internet in 2000. Half a million copies were downloaded in the first 48 hours after publication. But this proved to be a high-water mark rather than a taste of things to come. While buyers were reluctant to sit in front of a computer screen to read the latest novels, dedicated e-book-reading gadgets failed to catch on. Barnes and Noble, a leading American bookshop chain, began selling e-books with fanfare in 2000 but quietly pulled the plug in 2003 as interest faded.

The market for e-books is growing again, though from a tiny base. According to the International Digital Publishing Forum, which collates figures from many of the world’s top publishers, in the third quarter of 2004 (the latest available figures) worldwide sales were 25% higher than the year before. Unfortunately, this only amounted to a paltry $3.2m split between 23 publishers in an industry that made sales worth over $100 billion that year.

Both retailers and publishers reckon they will eventually be able to persuade consumers to do a lot more of their reading on the web. Some even hope they can become to online books what Apple’s iTunes is to online music. But there are crucial differences between downloading fiction and downloading funk. Online music was driven from the bottom up: illegal file-sharing services became wildly popular, and legal firms later took over when the pirates were forced (by a wave of lawsuits) to retreat; the legal providers are confident that more and more consumers will pay small sums for music rather than remain beyond the law. And the iPod music player and its like have proved a fashionable and popular new way to listen to songs. The book world has no equivalent.

So the commercial prospects for sellers of online books do not yet look very bright. But they may get a lift from some novel innovations. The ability to download mere parts of books could help, for instance: sections of manuals, textbooks or cookery books may tempt some customers; students may wish to download the relevant sections of course books; or readers may want a taste of a book that they subsequently buy in hard copy.

And the ability to download reading matter onto increasingly ubiquitous hand-held electronic devices and 3G phones may further encourage uptake. In Japan, the value of e-books (mainly manga comic books) delivered to mobile phones has jumped, though it will be worth only around ¥6 billion ($51m) in 2005, according to estimates.

Portal wars

Though the prospects for this latest incarnation of the e-book are unclear, Google, Amazon and the others may see it as a useful weapon in the wider war to dominate the internet. In the quest for visitors, and the advertising revenues they bring, the big portals have rolled out inducement after inducement, from instant messaging, e-mail and web telephony to picture-sharing, games and a host of other new services. By adding yet another feature, they hope to win business from each other—or at least ensure they don’t lose it.

The business of parting consumers from their cash for online books may not prove the money-spinner that Amazon and Google hope for. But this round of the battle between the tech giants will have the happy outcome of allowing the study and enjoyment of a vast pool of written material, much of which would otherwise prove hard to access or difficult to find. Though it may not much change our reading habits, its existence will prove a boon.

Confio que en las escuelas socialistas del futuro se enseñe estas dos lenguas como simbolo de la union de los pueblos hispanos y los pueblos anglosajones.

Confio que en las escuelas socialistas del futuro se enseñe estas dos lenguas como simbolo de la union de los pueblos hispanos y los pueblos anglosajones.

alegre escribió:Habra que empezar a estudiar chino

bscout escribió:De hecho algunas de las escuelas comunistas del presente ya lo están haciendo. Mirá el caso de China.

bscout escribió: Existen dos modelos: El Tipo I y el Tipo II. El Tipo I es la forma tradicional de brindar educación e investigar en las universidades (a nivel de postrgrado) y es cierto que su financiamiento es estatal.