Yahoo! Backed Open Content Alliance Trumps Google
Announcing the Open Content Alliance
http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000192.html
Almost everyone i've spoken to about Google's plans to scan millions of copyrighted print works and make them accessible comments on it with an air of mistrust, even outrage (depending who you're talking to). No other Search engine initiative has caused so much bad feeling, so many lawsuits and so much fear as far as i can recall. Hope springs eternal though, as Yahoo, masters of the public relations stab in the back, come out with not a proprietory system for scanning books, but an Open Content Alliance that's partnered with such groups as the Internet Archive and a whole bunch of others.
From the announcement on the Yahoo! blog
To kick this off, Internet Archive will host the material and sometimes helps with digitization, Yahoo will index the content and is also funding the digitization of an initial corpus of American literature collection that the University of California system is selecting, Adobe and HP are helping with the processing software, University of Toronto and O'Reilly are adding books, Prelinger Archives and the National Archives of the UK are adding movies, etc. We hope to add more institutions and fine tune the principles of working together
It's a PR coup. With the GOOG project under increasing legal pressure and suspicion, the OCA come in with a set of principles for participation that even the most cynical would find it hard to find fault with.
It's fluffy, it's opt-in and it's non-propriatory for the most part. It's a group of participating companies, not one organization - sheesh, could you have engineered a more "feel good" solution?
Bring it on i say, this sounds much more like it!
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Good move
This is definately two fingers up at G.
brilliant.
brilliant. brilliant. brilliant. etc.
The project is not cheap though, when you consider the scope:
from nytimes.com/2005/10/03/business/03yahoo.html
Yay!
WTG Y!
(And a nice article over at ResearchBuzz)
This is excellent
Excellent and, as it reads, well thought out and a benefit to the planet.
congrats to yahoo and their
congrats to yahoo and their partners
this is a good example of how to accomplish something and still respect the rights of others
John Paczkowski sums up why
John Paczkowski sums up why this is being greeted with open arms (for the most part) and the GOOG initiative is flailing:
Good Morning Silicon Valley: You're welcome to use the library, but the yodeler stays outside
I love this guys titles! Whereas i generally hate titles that dont tell me anythign about what im going to get when i click the rss link, this chap brings a smile at least once a day heh..