Everyone is my friend until they prove otherwise.
Not many are aware of the breadth of the Google Books initiative, or the controversies it has created. I became aware of it from reading Vernor Vinge’s “Rainbow’s End“.
Here’s Google’s Alexander MacGillivray talking about the service, the legal challenges, and the settlement.
This makes it worthwhile to get a library card again, there are many out of print books that I want to read again.
Thanks go to the Berkman Center for the session.
The product of your creativity belongs to you, and you are by law entitled to profit therefrom. In a cut ‘n paste world where sampling and remixing are the norm those lines become blurred. This however looks egregiously wrong to me if it’s true: [see update below, the Youtube vid could be a scam. – editor]
Update: more on this from AOL
UPDATE: Coldplay comes out with strong Denial:
“We totally refute their claims, and there are two facts that make it easy to disprove them,” said the band’s spokesman Murray Chalmers.
“First, on the night in October when the band say Chris Martin was watching them, he was actually working at the Air Studio in London, and we can prove that. Second, even if he had been at the gig, Viva la Vida was written and demoed seven months before the night in question, so it couldn’t possibly have been copied.”
Since there aren’t suits flying this ends up being either coincidence, a smart publicity scam, or … something. Look for more of the same in the future, as melodies can sometimes come to several people completely isolate from each other.
