Politech: Doug Isenberg on Amazon.com's "Search Inside the Book" feature

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 12:41:25 -0500
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
From: Doug Isenberg <disenberg () gigalaw com>
Subject: My thoughts on Amazon.com's "Search Inside the Book" feature
In-Reply-To: <6.0.0.22.2.20031111084259.02045600 () mail well com>

Declan:

	You may have noticed that CNET News.com has just published my column about 
Amazon.com's new and controversial "Search Inside the Book" feature.
        Here are a couple of excerpts:

	"I wrote a book that sells for $17.95. Amazon.com has always advertised it 
for 30 percent off. Now, the Web retailer is offering online access to 
every page of my book for free. I like the idea, though the copyright 
lawyer in me is a bit uneasy about it....
	"The company says it has agreements with 190 publishers to publish their 
books' actual pages online. But I've not heard of Amazon asking for 
permission from the books' authors, and, as an author myself, I can say for 
certain that neither Amazon nor Random House directly asked me to 
participate in this feature....
	"The more interesting issue is whether Amazon needs permission from us 
authors or even, for that matter, from our publishers themselves."
	Feel free to share this link to the column with your Politech readers: 
http://news.com.com/2010-1025-5105389.html
Doug Isenberg
Attorney at Law
Editor & Publisher, GigaLaw.com (http://www.GigaLaw.com)
// Get FREE daily technology law news @ http://www.GigaLaw.com/news //



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