Cites & Insights 9:4 (March 2009) available

Cites & Insights 9:4 (March 2009) is now available.

The 30-page issue (PDF as usual, but there's an HTML version of the essay) consists of one essay:

Perspective: The Google Books Search Settlement

As an author with nine out of print books (to which I hold the rights): Great! I might see a couple hundred dollars...eventually. As one who cares about fair use: Boo! Google backed away from a case I thought they could win--and did so in a way that will make it harder for others in a similar situation. As a reader: Great--Google Books Search will continue to grow, and we'll see more than snippess from (some? most?) of five million out-of-print/in-copyright books. (As for "buying" such books, or rather, "permanent" online access to indifferently-scanned pages that can't be downloaded as PDFs and don't appear to have first-sale rights: Eh.) As a library supporter and user: Unclear--extremely unclear.

We won't have final answers for a long time. Meanwhile, this issue reviews some of the summaries and commentaries, throwing in a fair amount of my own commentary.

Barring truly unusual events, the April issue will have more than one essay, and almost certainly more than two.

One note: While there is an HTML version of the essay, please don't print out that version. It will require 38 pages (or more), and it's almost certainly not as readable as the 30-page PDF. I'm providing it for online viewing, downloading, cut & paste, whatever...but printing it would just be wasting paper.