Google and universities

Wednesday, March 21, 2007 by Dave Winer.

You may have heard that Google is doing deals with university libraries, in general the terms of the deals are secret, but some of the terms are starting to come out. 

For example, at least some of the universities didn't get the right to re-license scans of books that Google hands back to them.  

It appears none of the libraries thought the whole thing through to the point where they realized that after it's all done, there will be one great university library, Google's, and it will be a commercial entity. It's one thing to sell a food concession to McDonald's, but the library? How much more central to the being of a university can you get? 

Had they worked together first, it's likely they could have negotiated terms that allowed them to remain in business after Google is finished sucking up all their content.  

Peter Brantley, who negotiated for the University of California, wrote two blog posts about his dealings with Google. One lyrical and sad, and the other apologetic. Both are revealing and worth reading.  

Remember, in all this, Google is a rich company whose first responsibility is to its shareholders. Today they're riding high, but in a few quarters, they may have trouble making their numbers. It may have seemed Microsoft would always be on top, and no one could get fired for buying IBM. Who knows what Google will do with the trust when they need the money.  

And while some of the schools are private, and responsible only to their trustees, others are public, and repsonsible to the people. What right did they have to trade away the people's property, and what did they get in return? No one knows, yet.