Media
Googled: The End of the World As We Know It
15/01/10 18:41
400 pages, Penguin Press. $27.95
Reviewed By Mike Attebery
When I published by first novel in 2008, Google’s bots managed to nab an entire electronic copy of it and make if free for download! I had approved a brief snippet in order to allow potential customers a sneak peek at a story I had been writing for the better party of 8 years, only to find that the entire thing, every word, ever comma, every steamy love scene, had been nabbed and put out there for free. Anyone with an interest in media and the internet is aware of Google, and anyone with a creative bone in their body has probably wondered about copyright law. As Ken Aulette makes clear again and again through his latest book, Google is a company founded and run by software engineers. As a Fine Arts major who went to a college split almost 50/50 between artists & photographers and scientiests & engineer, the scenario of individuals who don’t seem to “get” creative types and intellectual property rights is all to familair. I don’t believe consideration of copyright even crosses the Google guys’ minds! From news and online publishing, to YouTube and Google books (including ones still under copyright or in the control of family estates), Google doesn’t seem to care about or comprehend copyright, and as I see it, reading between the lines, a company that doesn’t understand such laws is in for a bumpy ride (as current events seem to illustrate), and engineers who don’t understand the value of say, an editor, are never going to convince everyone that their intentions are not quite evil, since lets face it, they don’t know enough about language, emotional intelligence, or communications to consider what kind of impression they are actually making. This isn’t the riveting expose I was hoping for from Mr. Auletta, but for anyone in media, I do believe this is a must read. Get your copy here.