Court Nixes Bid To Roll Back Copyright Protection on Orphan Works

January 23, 2007 in Copyright, Web Legal

This is another stumbling block to Google’s efforts to ignore current copyright laws and instead, allow copyright holders to ‘opt-out’. The ‘opt-out’ Google mantra is just one of the recent reasons Google has been chided over it’s ‘Do No Evil’ policy.

Via CNet:

A U.S. appeals court has rejected a bid by Internet activists to roll back federal laws that extended copyright protection over orphan works, or books and other media that are no longer in print.

I always find these cases interesting because it seems that Google feels they are simply above the law. but no matter what position you take on the issue, isn’t it better that the laws are tested now rather than later?

Google’s argument against asking for permission seems to boil down to nothing but, ‘that takes too long’.