“Today, we’re announcing an initiative to help bring more magazine archives and current magazines online, partnering with publishers to begin digitizing millions of articles from titles as diverse as New York Magazine, Popular Mechanics, and Ebony.”

“Over time, as we scan more articles, you’ll see more and more magazines appear in Google Book Search results. Eventually, we’ll also begin blending magazine results into our main Google.com search results, so you may begin finding magazines you didn’t even know you were looking for.”

Official Google Blog post is (here).

In a related story:

“… the high court, without comment, let stand rulings that Tasini — which bars publishers from selling published articles to Internet databases without securing new copyright permissions from freelance contributors — did not prohibit publishers from selling their digital archives on CD-ROMs without securing new copyright contracts.”

Read about it (here).

Thanks for the tips John.

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5 Comments

  1. Ok – I’m confused. The Tasini case prohibits publishers from selling content to Internet Databases (Google) without securing new copyright permissions, but Google is partnering with publishers to put magazine content online…? Something is not right here.

    What does this mean for photographers? Are we going to need to start policing google book search results for magazines we’ve worked for and try to get paid? Assuming of course we managed to keep the publication from getting all electronic rights in the first place.

  2. I think that google has decided based on what happened with book publishers to just do it and settle the issues in court because bringing everyone to the table to negotiate beforehand is too difficult. It’s only a matter of time before they scan some pages with pictures from a photographer who can mount a serious lawsuit.

  3. I think Google might have the resources to outspend someone in court. Also, if the Orphan Works act passes, that might provide enough protection to them to limit damages.

  4. So how does this reflect resale value on those no budget jobs that you need to make up losses for by licensing to others afterwards? Surely the content will already be out there for anyone to see and potentialy worthless to photographers in terms of re-licensing to other publications / individuals?

  5. Google believes that the own all of the content on the internet (in my opinion). So of course once they get the scanning done they’ll own this material also.

    That’s why Goggle is one of the main backers behind the Orphan Works bill.

    The masters of the dinosaur media never quite figured this out, even while they were brokering their content to advertisers through them (google).

    The big ad agencies are kind of figuring this out, but too late.

    Google is a big ad agency. Theie goal, in my opinion, is to paste ads on any content they wish, without ever paying to create any content.


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