I apologize for the broken-record nature of my posts this week, but I thought this, from Patrick Ross’s summary of yesterday’s hearing, was pretty rich.
Diana DeGette (D-Colo.)–Tore Google a new one over its Google Print program, although she misstated the company’s program by saying it was putting whole books online.
Tim Murphy (R-Pa.)– Echoed DeGette, noting he himself is an author. He said the company was “taking away the ability to make a living.”
I wonder, does it bother him at all that DeGette and Murphy are apparently completely clueless about what Google Print (now known as Google Book Search) actually does? Did he, DeLong, or any of Google’s critics make any effort to correct their obviously flawed understanding of what’s at stake? Because this isn’t a minor misunderstanding. You can’t even begin a fair-minded analysis of Google’s product if you think that Google is distributing entire books, which everyone understands would be a clear violation of copyright law.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
Comments on this entry are closed.