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Anthony
 
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The ability through Amazon to look inside many of their books seems to me an
awesome research tool. For example there was a recent thread in which the
OP wanted info about bouillabaisse; I went to Amazon, looked up the Oxford
Companion to Food and was able to bring up the piece on bouillabaisse.
Maybe this is old hat to some of you, but it was the first time I'd used it
and I was amazed!


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Anthony > wrote:
> The ability through Amazon to look inside many of their books seems to me an
> awesome research tool. For example there was a recent thread in which the
> OP wanted info about bouillabaisse; I went to Amazon, looked up the Oxford
> Companion to Food and was able to bring up the piece on bouillabaisse.
> Maybe this is old hat to some of you, but it was the first time I'd used it
> and I was amazed!


The ability to search actual book contents on Amazon.com is a fairly new feature. It
became available two or three months ago. From what I have read in the news, many
book publishers are against the idea. I do not blame them. I suspect this feature
will either end entirely or be paired back soon because it does really violate
copyright laws, in my opinion.
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JimLane
 
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Julian Vrieslander wrote:

> In article >, wrote:
>
>
>>Anthony > wrote:
>>
>>>The ability through Amazon to look inside many of their books seems to me
>>>an
>>>awesome research tool. For example there was a recent thread in which the
>>>OP wanted info about bouillabaisse; I went to Amazon, looked up the Oxford
>>>Companion to Food and was able to bring up the piece on bouillabaisse.
>>>Maybe this is old hat to some of you, but it was the first time I'd used it
>>>and I was amazed!

>>
>>The ability to search actual book contents on Amazon.com is a fairly new
>>feature. It
>>became available two or three months ago. From what I have read in the news,
>>many
>>book publishers are against the idea. I do not blame them. I suspect this
>>feature
>>will either end entirely or be paired back soon because it does really
>>violate
>>copyright laws, in my opinion.

>
>
> How is this different than what happens every day in bookstores? People
> walk in, pick up books and start reading. You could argue that computer
> access allows easier copying. But a customer could also circumvent
> copyright by bringing a digicam or pocketable scanner into a bookstore.
>
> The main differences for the Amazon store is (a) the convenience factor,
> and (b) that users can perform computerized searches within the texts of
> the books. Maybe that poses new issues for copyright law.
>


That is a fact. Saw a man cribbing notes on recipes from a book in
CostCo recently. Laying them into a PDA. Wonder how many times someone
has done the same using a phone and leaving the recipe as a message or a
a voice memo.


jim
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Anthony
 
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> wrote in message ...
> The ability to search actual book contents on Amazon.com is a fairly new

feature. It
> became available two or three months ago. From what I have read in the

news, many
> book publishers are against the idea. I do not blame them. I suspect this

feature
> will either end entirely or be paired back soon because it does really

violate
> copyright laws, in my opinion.


Tough call for the publishers. Not that much different from being able to
browse in a bookstore and those of us who read will most probably want to
own the book anyway.




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Julian Vrieslander > wrote:

> How is this different than what happens every day in bookstores? People
> walk in, pick up books and start reading. You could argue that computer
> access allows easier copying. But a customer could also circumvent
> copyright by bringing a digicam or pocketable scanner into a bookstore.


People have to actually visit a bookstore in person, find the book they have in
mind, sit down, and read through it. Online, this can all be done from one's home
and many people can review the contents of the same book at the same time. In a
bookstore, the browsing is limited to the number of books the store has in stock and
browsing more than a few minutes is also not permitted in many bookstores.

> The main differences for the Amazon store is (a) the convenience factor,
> and (b) that users can perform computerized searches within the texts of
> the books. Maybe that poses new issues for copyright law.


Yup, and not to mention that browsing via Amazon.com makes books available
to a wider group of people. Copying text illegally from what's online also
becomes trivial, such as copying a recipe from a particular cookbook.

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Anthony > wrote:

> Tough call for the publishers. Not that much different from being able to
> browse in a bookstore and those of us who read will most probably want to
> own the book anyway.


Actually, it is very different in a few ways. Most importantly, illegal copying
of text from a book becomes easy via Amazon.com's new search feature. One can
sit and write down selected parts of a book from a bookstore, but that requires
time and effort.

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DRB
 
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"Steve Wertz" > wrote in message
...
> On 14 Jan 2004 18:50:43 GMT, wrote:
>> >The ability to search actual book contents on Amazon.com is a fairly new

feature. It
> >became available two or three months ago. From what I have read in the

news, many
> >book publishers are against the idea. I do not blame them. I suspect this

feature
> >will either end entirely or be paired back soon because it does really

violate
> >copyright laws, in my opinion.

>
> They would have to have the publishers perission to print any part
> of the book, especially electronically. I worked for a bookstore
> that did this (Computer Literacy Bookshops, BTW) to some extent,
> but only the tables of contents. Even for that we had to get the
> publishers permission, otherwqise it was clearly illegal.
>
> If Amazon is making portions of books avaiulable electronically,
> they obviously have the publishers (or copyright holders)
> permission. There's no way around that and I'm sure Amazon
> wouldn't flagrantly violate copyright laws like that.
>


Exactly! Amazon isn't exactly Kazaa. This is a major and public company;
they wouldn't put up content like this unless they had permission.

I've played with this feature a little. It's not available on all books,
and typically only brings up a handful of page at time when you do the word
search. For most reading purposes, this little feature would make it a
pain.. They do have the table of contents and indexs, which IMO, is nice to
see before you buy.


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Anthony
 
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"DRB" > wrote in message
. ..
>
>
> Exactly! Amazon isn't exactly Kazaa. This is a major and public company;
> they wouldn't put up content like this unless they had permission.
>
> I've played with this feature a little. It's not available on all books,
> and typically only brings up a handful of page at time when you do the

word
> search. For most reading purposes, this little feature would make it a
> pain.. They do have the table of contents and indexs, which IMO, is nice

to
> see before you buy.
>

I agree. Its main use would be for reference books so publishers of others
probably don't have much to worry about.


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