It is a vast orphanage, yet its inhabitants are not children, but millions of books that have been unceremoniously dumped by their owners, locked away unseen and unread. Many of the books’ authors are still alive. That is not the problem. The trouble is that the copyright owners – the publishers – no longer think they will profit from making these books commercially available. Yet the owners decline to free the books and make them publicly available, in case someone else makes money from them. Many books will only be in commercial print for a couple of years before they are packed off to the orphanage to spend decades in the dark.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/feb/07/cloud-computing-google-apple
From Google’s library project to Apple’s iTunes store, ‘cloud capitalism’ provides an innovative way forward for business – but raises more questions about privacy and security
It is a vast orphanage, yet its inhabitants are not children, but millions of books that have been unceremoniously dumped by their owners, locked away unseen and unread. Many of the books’ authors are still alive. That is not the problem. The trouble is that the copyright owners – the publishers – no longer think they will profit from making these books commercially available. Yet the owners decline to free the books and make them publicly available, in case someone else makes money from them. Many books will only be in commercial print for a couple of years before they are packed off to the orphanage to spend decades in the dark.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/feb/07/cloud-computing-google-apple
From Google’s library project to Apple’s iTunes store, ‘cloud capitalism’ provides an innovative way forward for business – but raises more questions about privacy and security