flack47 - 3:04 pm on Mar 6, 2007 (gmt 0)

You have to admire the Google business model, though: put stuff out for free in a way that people have yet to figure out how to regulate and make a killing off of it. Just to cover their butt, though, make sure that they offer an "opt out" option. That way they can say "Hey, bro, he could have told us to not allow people to read his book in its entirety."

Nevermind the fact that they don't come to you with the "opt out" option. You have to first realize that Google is ripping your intellectual property, then tell them to stop.
"You're in unless you tell us otherwise."
Seems like they're assuming a little more authority than they're entitled to, if you ask me.

Furthermore, for all of the people that like to bring up how Microsoft likes to rip off this company and that company. The truth is that you would be hard-pressed to find a company that doesn't mimic other people's innovations in their design - especially in any new/evolving medium. It's just the way that things work. They could take more of a Google approach and just wait for something to look promising, then buy it *cough*Youtube*cough*.

Back on the ripping other people's stuff subject, though. This whole book thing gives me a bad flashback of a day when a certain company began making mp3s available for free, not realizing that one day the owners of the intellectual property contained therewithin would come at them with a furious whineyboy-drummer (Lars) vengeance.

And now I'm off of my soapbox :)

[edited by: caveman at 4:47 pm (utc) on Mar. 6, 2007]