GW ePublishing

he big forces driving media piracy in developing countries are real and powerful and will not be changed, no matter how many western politicians get on their moral high horses and insist that countries like India and China build a “culture of intellectual property.” But the irony is that if governments and corporations really wanted to build such a culture, then they would encourage companies to set their prices low enough that the populations of those countries could actually afford to buy music, movies, and software at the full legal retail price. It turns out that domestic companies are quite good at distributing media at low prices, and can build profitable businesses by doing that. But foreign companies have different incentives in the short term, and don’t do that.

Advocates of open access to orphan works cheered the rejection of the settlement, saying it could pave the way for legislation that would let anyone — not just Google — use the books..

“If Congress can wake up to the importance of this issue, there’s a good chance they will pass orphan books legislation, and they will do so in the interest of the general public, not favoring any enterprise,” said Robert Darnton, director of the Harvard University Library