They have no basis for fighting this.

Submitted by borisdblade on Sun, 08/23/2009 - 3:00pm

Microsoft has never sold a book, Yahoo has never sold a book. Amazon was know for books, but now it's another ebay. they have no basis for fighting this. Library's are free. Nationwide. Go to the Library of Congress, free. New York, free. Google wants to put a library on the internet, go for it! The others are just pissed because they didn't think of the idea first. They'd charge $20 a month for 5 book downloads. I'm going to stand up for Google on this one. It's not about money, it's about bringing knowledge to the masses in a widely understood medium.

When was the last time you visited your library and actually checked out a book Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon? People now want all the extras for no extra charge. I'm tired of being nickle and dimed to bankruptcy because some 'poor' little conglomorate can't seem to stop being greedy and take more money than what's reasonable for a crappy service. It's quality over quantity CEO's. Put out a quality product or service and you'll have customers willing to stand for your shoddy Indian phone reps with accents so thick it's almost a waste of time to listen. 

 

Login or register to post comments

OH NO! Google's free library

Submitted by Walnut on Sun, 08/23/2009 - 1:51pm

OH NO! Google's free library is better than our free library! SUE SUE SUE!

What a joke. Yeah, their tactics are underhanded, and they need to come up with a better way of doing things. At the same time, as I understand it, the only books that you can read for free are out of copyright. You can search other books for terms and whatnot, and they'll give you links to places where you can buy or check out the book. They'll show you a few sample pages if they have a deal with the publisher, which is more of a marketing tactic than anything else. Hasn't Amazon been doing that for years? 

Login or register to post comments

A big shot in the foot...

Submitted by w2ed on Sun, 08/23/2009 - 1:32pm

Of all the corporations to add to their "Alliance," You couldn't have picked three worse companies together than what you have here.  Microsoft and Yahoo are both direct competitors to Google, still sore over the search engine war, and are into an alliance of their own - both of them joining ain't to better the internet, but a destructive aid towards bringing down a competitor.  Amazon, on the other hand, is also a competitor in the digital book form, albeit being limitted to the Kindle and other devices and readers who can read their format.  Altruistic reasons are not there for any of these three.

I'm not into Google's solution - if I make a product, I certainly don't want anyone to just go and give it away for free, even if I get paid from it, either through people going and buying it afterwards or from the company paying me to do so, without my permission first.   Google's tactics in the matter is garbage, and I'd be in full support of the OBA if not for their corporate sponsors.  At this point, both sides can go - wait, this is a family-read magazine isn't it?  Both sides can go somewhere else then...

Login or register to post comments

heh heh microsoft is on the

Submitted by dc10ten on Sun, 08/23/2009 - 12:06pm

heh heh microsoft is on the alliance, pointing fingers at google for being a monopoly.

 

"aint that the pot who called the kettle black"

Login or register to post comments