'Demise of Google Newspaper Archive Shows Need for National Digital Library Policy' ... today at Beyond Chron

Demise of Google Newspaper Archive Shows Need for National Digital Library Policy

by Irvin Muchnick

Google last week suspended its gargantuan project to scan and archive the historical content of all the world’s newspapers. The Boston Phoenix explained the development in detail.

A federal court has already thrown out the Google Books class-action settlement, which was negotiated by a publishers’ trade group and the sellout, private-spirited Authors Guild. Meanwhile, the world waits … and waits … and waits … forhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to rule on objections by myself and others to an even worse sellout – really, a giveaway – by three writers’ organizations to just about the entire periodicals industry. (The case was known at the Supreme Court as Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick when the justices last year kicked it back to lower courts for adjudication of the merits.)

Google’s abandonment of its newspaper archive plan is one more illustration of why the new publishing landscape needs clear information superhighway rules of the road.

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