It was my husband who introduced me to G a few years ago. You can ask him anything, he said.And so I did. At first our liaison was irregular. Once in a while, I'd look G up for something or other. However, in the past couple of years, we have become closer. Now not a day passes by without me calling on G.
I mean it's not like I could call hubby at work and ask him inane stuff like "What are the symptoms of Bell Palsy," or "Who was the third American president?" He'd go ballistic and say something like, "I'm in the middle of a meeting with my big boss. Will you stop asking nonsense?!" Not that he'd know the answers anyway.
So he can't blame me for getting so close to G. And when you're close to someone, you feel for him when he's in trouble. You see, G's got into some sort of legal entanglement. While I feel sorry for the other party, I also emphathize with G. He's been so helpful to me that I just can't turn on him and say "Serve you right!" I hope things work out well for both sides. I want to continue to court G and will not give him up for anything, not unless someone better comes along.
Want to know who G is? Click on the Comment box to find out.
15 comments:
G is for Google.
Here's an article from Managing Intellectual Property dated 27/9/2005
Google sued for copyright infringement
Stephanie Bodoni, London
Google is facing the wrath of thousands of authors in a class action suit filed against the internet search engine last month over its "unauthorized" digital scanning of books which it plans to make publicly accessible online.
The Authors Guild, the largest US association of some 8,000 published authors and writers, filed the suit together with three individual authors in the Manhattan Federal Court on September 20, accusing Google of "massive copyright infringement" at the expense of individual writers.
At issue is the Google Print library programme, launched last year to create a searchable online register of books in all languages on its website, available to users worldwide.
As part of this project Google last December announced it had reached agreements with the libraries of Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, the University of Oxford and the New York Public Library to digitally scan books from their collections and make them accessible to online users from anywhere in the world on Google's site. The library will include works as rare as those of the Oxford University's Bodleian Library's 19th century collections, many of which are out-of-print.
But the authors last month claimed that many of the works Google is making searchable on its website are still copyright-protected. "This is plain and brazen violation of copyright law," said Nick Taylor, president of the Authors Guild. "It's not up to Google or anyone other than the authors, the rightful owners of these copyrights, to decide whether and how their works will be copied."
The authors claim that neither the libraries nor Google own the copyright to the books, and that Google should have asked the relevant writers directly for their permission to reproduce the books on its website. "We're not opposed to the basic idea to make books searchable on the internet, but we are opposed to making them searchable without a licence," Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild told MIP.
This is Google's response as posted in Google Blog.
Google Print and the Authors Guild
9/20/2005 09:04:00 PM
Posted by Susan Wojcicki, Vice President, Product Management
Today we learned that the Authors Guild filed a lawsuit to try to stop Google Print. We regret that this group chose to sue us over a program that will make millions of books more discoverable to the world -- especially since any copyright holder can exclude their books from the program. What’s more, many of Google Print’s chief beneficiaries will be authors whose backlist, out of print and lightly marketed new titles will be suggested to countless readers who wouldn’t have found them otherwise.
Let's be clear: Google doesn’t show even a single page to users who find copyrighted books through this program (unless the copyright holder gives us permission to show more). At most we show only a brief snippet of text where their search term appears, along with basic bibliographic information and several links to online booksellers and libraries. Here’s what an in-copyright book scanned from a library looks like on Google Print:
Google respects copyright. The use we make of all the books we scan through the Library Project is fully consistent with both the fair use doctrine under U.S. copyright law and the principles underlying copyright law itself, which allow everything from parodies to excerpts in book reviews. (Here's an article by one of the many legal scholars who have weighed in on Google Print.)
Just as Google helps you find sites you might not have found any other way by indexing the full text of web pages, Google Print, like an electronic card catalog, indexes book content to help users find, and perhaps buy, books. This ability to introduce millions of users to millions of titles can only expand the market for authors’ books, which is precisely what copyright law is intended to foster.
oh yeah iread abt this..aiyaa lydia..buat suspen je lah! :)
Where would we be, what would we do, without Google?
Nadia, suspen tu bagus.
Ailin, aiya, I was wondering what to put without raising the suspicion!
Queen, Google is King.
Kak Teh is still blur and was thinking that Lydia has some secret male friend ! aiyah!
Kak Teh also got - YS - the Yahoo Search...Good one lydia, Mr G is also my frined and has helped me out so many times.
Nope, Google is Queen!!!
KT, that's the whole idea to this secret admirer notion.
Queen, King, Queen, no matter, all royalty.
Dear Lydia, At first sight of your 1st clause. I thought it's G-stxxxx, a kind of fancy. Still can't get what's G, by seeing a picture of forest beside, I thought It's Gorilla. I'm sorry for my inclined imagination. Anyway you've done a vox for G.
Charming idea. Extending your entry into your comment box :) Very Creative indeed! At first I thought (with the tree picture) G is a medium of some sort....hahahha
G even pays me in USD. Well, almost.
put3put4, naughty2.
Dr, thanks. Did you see the hands at the side of the tree : secretive.
5xmom, maybe I should jump into that bandwagon too :)
Ha, I also thought that you have a close male pal whom you confide with all the time.
I'm a google freak.
Lydia, when I read, even before I opened up your comments board, I straightaway knew it was Google already prolly cos hubby introduced me to the same G you are talking about! Now he even asks me to do searches for him becos he says I'm better at getting the keywords to get to relevant sites wor. Hehehe. BTW, wheres your winning strategies? Got lots of ppl waiting for it. Haha. Pressure. pressure.
Grace, Google's a pal, yes but gender neutral.
Xmocha/Sharon, a googol of cheers for Google!
Adiejin, waitlah. One day I write a story with a Gerald or Garry or Guna...
Abdullah, :) to you too.
MG, Aiya, you can see through the ruse! Tips coming up.
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