谷歌为何要“读”万卷书？实用英语

文章作者 100test 发表时间 2009:08:31 17:55:12
来源 100Test.Com百考试题网

　　在人们今年池边消遣读物的清单上，1960年对芬兰女学生的社会学研究或1894年出版的如何打板球的手册一定不会排在首位。
　　这些已绝版很久的著作更有可能躺在阁楼上积灰，在人们书架的角落渐渐被遗忘，或者像这两本书那样，分别在哈佛和威斯康辛大学图书馆里朽烂。估计美国各家图书馆馆藏不同书目4000万册，其中一半以上再也不可能重新被出版商相中。
　　这让谷歌的一项努力看起来既雄心万丈又不切实际来源：www.examda.com。谷歌对美国顶尖研究图书馆进行深度挖掘，为它能得到的所有著作制作数字副本。该项目差不多始于五年前，现已开始从其他国家的图书馆扫描版权过期著作。一个所有目前存世书籍——哪怕是现如今几乎没什么人会感兴趣的书籍——的数字档案库正将这家互联网公司“整合全世界的信息”的使命推向极端。
　　A 1960 sociological study of female Finnish students or an 1894 handbook on how to  .play cricket are probably at the top of no one’s poolside reading list this year.
　　Long out of print, such works are more likely to be gathering dust in attics, languishing forgotten at the backs of people’s bookshelves or, as in the case of these two volumes, mouldering in the Harvard and Wisconsin university libraries respectively. Of the estimated 40m different books held by US libraries, well over half are unlikely ever to find their way back into a publisher’s favour.
　　That makes an effort by Google, to bu本文来源:百考试题网rrow deep into the leading US research libraries to make digital copies of all the works it can lay its hands on, seem both ambitious and quixotic. The project, begun nearly five years ago, has also started scanning out-of-copyright works from libraries in other countries. A digital archive of all extant books – even ones in which few people are these days likely to show much interest – is carrying the internet company’s mission to “organise the world’s information” to the extreme.
　　Yet this mountain of fading literary oddments is now at the centre of a fierce debate in the book world that is about to come to a head.
　　After facing copyright lawsuits in the US over the digitisation project, Google reached a settlement last year that seemed to have something for just about everyone: publishers and authors, because it gives them a chance to make money from long-forgotten works. public and university libraries, as it provides them with a way to leap beyond their dead-tree stacks into the digital age. and readers, to whom it brings access to millions of works that would otherwise have remained out of reach.
　　But this agreement with the US book industry, which awaits court approval, has stirred up the sort of passions that always attach to books, those most cultural of manufactured objects. In particular, the deal has provoked the fear that a more centralised industry will arise as publishing turns digital, upending checks and balances put in place over decades.
　　“The book world has done really well out of www.Ｅxamda.CoM考试就到百考试题decentralisation – anyone who has ideas, or access to a printing press, can take part,” says James Grimmelmann, associate professor at New York Law School, a leading critic of the settlement. Giving Google too much power over old, out-of-print works, he adds, could set the stage for its dominance of the broader digital book market: “Control over the past will translate into control over the future of books.”
　　The US Department of Justice has taken such concerns seriously enough to launch an investigation into the competitive implications of the settlement: it is due to submit its views to the court considering the case in the middle of next month. Before that, the European Commission has called its own hearing on the issue, to consider the impact on Europe’s book industry and authors’ rights.
　　The main focus of the settlement falls on out-of-print books that are still in copyright. These works probably account for 60 per cent or so of all books in the US, making them a massive – if heavily underused – intellectual resource. While Google’s initial go-it-alone approach to digitising these works brought angst and lawsuits, the accord has turned it into an ally of the American book world. Unless copyright owners opt out of the plan, a Book Rights Registry to be run by representatives of the publishers and authors will have the power to license digital rights for all out-of-print books in the US to Google.
　　Google will then make parts of these works available through its search service, sell subscriptions to the entire database to university libraries and others – every library in the US will be offered a single free terminal to tap into the treasure trove – and sell access to full versions of individual works hosted on its computers. It will keep 37 per cent of the money from these sales, passing the rest to the registry to be paid out to copyright holders.
　　The undertaking is set to cost “hundreds of millions of dollars”, says Dan Clancy, head of the Google Books effort. Yet there is little business in old books: second-hand volumes are estimated to account for less than $1bn of the $25bn US books market. The scale of the ambition makes it the sort of thing that only a Google would contemplate – or be able to afford.
　　David Balto, a former justice department lawyer, argues that any antitrust concerns are dwarfed by the benefits the settlement will bring. “What Google is doing is incredible – from a competition policy perspective, you don’t want to punish people who are risking millions of dollars doing things like this that haven’t been done before,” he says.
　　Even the settlement’s critics admit that it will bring immediate and substantial benefits, making millions of books widely available in the US for the first time. Yet its potential long-term impact on the shape of the digital book market has guaranteed that the settlement will attract close regulatory scrutiny, whatever its immediate attractions.
　　Critics fear that two aspects in particular could hand Google too much power, while also leaving a coterie of publishers and authors with disproportionate sway over setting prices for digital works, to the detriment of readers.
　　The first concerns the exclusive right that Google would have to distribute digital books whose copyright holders cannot be traced. These so-called “orphan works” may make up a large portion of all out-of-print tomes: Paul Courant, head of the University of Michigan library, estimates that they amount to 1m-2.5m of his collection of 8m volumes.
　　Congress has failed in its own efforts to free up these works so they can be sold without the risk of claims later from the copyright owners. It is a peculiarity of class action law in the US, though, that private legal action can achieve a result that has eluded Congress: since Google and the new books registry would be free to sell works whose owners did not actively opt out of the court-approved settlement, they would assume a right not available to anyone else.
　　But even if Google is left as sole distributor of orphan works, do the benefits outweigh antitrust worries? “Google is certainly going to be in a position of power in out-of-print books – but out-of-print books aren’t exactly hot commercial properties,” says Mr Courant. Balanced against that are the benefits to readers: “Being able to use these orphan works is much, much better than nothing.”
　　Opponents say this understates the potential value to Google in the long run. Having the world’s most comprehensive collection could make it the default first choice for book buyers, overshadowing Amazon.com’s claim to be the world’s biggest bookstore. “You’re much more likely to turn to Google first because they’ll have many more titles,” says the law school’s Mr Grimmelmann.