Google Book Search and ‘Exporting’ New Zealand books

You may be aware that on November 9, 2009 the US Authors’ Guild and the Association of American Publishers were scheduled to file a settlement to resolve their suit against Google for alleged breach of copyright in its programme to digitise millions of books and make them available for a fee online.

Google has already digitised over ten million books.  The New York Review of Books has published a feature article by Robert Darnton entitled Google and the new Digital Future which surveys and summarises this issue as it is being played out in the US.  You can find it at: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23518

How does this affect New Zealand authors and their books?  Does it mean that Google will be able to make money from our authors and their works, when we should be able to sell or give them to the world ourselves?  In fact New Zealand has been left out of the deal and Google will only scan and sell book registered with the US Copyright Office or published in Britain, Australia and Canada.

Claire McEntee explains the situation clearly in her article Kiwi authors want to call the shots online  which can be found at http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/3086310/Google-books-row-explained  if you want to check it out.   I think it is worth a read.

Trade in Services - Untapped Potential

There seems to be a continuing and exclusive focus on the export of goods. Even in a recent column by John Carran in the Dominion Post October 10, 2009 entitled No economic salvation likely from goods exports alone where the title seems to suggest there could be other kinds of exports which will help New Zealand, trade in services gets very little support.

This is in spite of the fact that the services share of New Zealand’s total exports is about 26% and the March 2009 Balance of Payments figures show there was an increase in the export of services. Charles Finny of the Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce said in a press release on 25 June 2009 that ‘New Zealand exported $2.9 billion of services excluding transport and travel in the last 12 months. The range of services in this category includes:

Computer, financial, telecommunications, legal, advertising, architectural, film production, engineering and many other services.’

Is it time for exporters of services to bring some balance to the push for an export-driven recovery?

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/telstar/135412439/ 20-foot (1 TEU) containers stacked in Alameda, California (Creative Commons-licensed content for noncommercial use requiring attribution)