2011年12月大学英语六级真题及答案
Part II Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning) (15 minutes)
Google's Plan for World's Biggest Online Library: Philanthropy Or Act of Piracy?
In recent years, teams of workers dispatched by Google have been working hard to make digital copies of books. So far, Google has scanned more than 10 million titles from libraries in America and Europemc七羽 - including half a million volumes held by the Bodleian in Oxford. The exact method it us is unclear; the company does not allow outsiders to obrve the process.
Why is Google undertaking such a venture? Why is it even interested in all tho out-of-printlibrary books, most of which have been gathering dust on forgotten shelves for decades? Thecompany claims its motives are esntially public-spirited. Its overall mission, after all, is to "organi the world's information", so it would be odd if that information did not include books.
The company likes to prent itlf as having lofty aspirations. "This really isn't about making money. We are doing this for the good of society." As Santiago de la Mora, head of Google Books for Europe, puts it: "By making it possible to arch the millions of books that exist today, we hope to expand the frontiers of human knowledge."
Dan Clancy, the chief architect of Google Books, does em genuine in his conviction that thisis primarily a philanthropic (慈善的) exerci. "Google's core business is arch and find, soobviously what helps improve Google's arch engine is good for Google," he says. "But we have上海购房资格never built a 农夫成人网spreadsheet抬举的意思 (电子数据表) outlining the financial benefits of this, and I have neverhad to justify the amount I am spending to the company's founders."
It is easy, talking to Clancy and his colleagues, to be swept along by their missionary passion. But Google's book-scanning project is proving controversial. Several opponents have recently emerged, ranging from rival tech giants such as Microsoft and Amazon to small bodies reprenting authors and publishers across the world. In broad terms, the opponents have levelled two ts of criticisms at Google.很失望的句子
First, they have questioned whether the primary responsibility for digitally archiving the world's books should be allowed to fall to a commercial company. In a recent essay in the New YorkReview of Books, Robert Darnton, the head of Harvard University's library, argued that becau such books are a common resource – the posssion of us all – only public, not-for-profit bodiesshould be given the power to control them.
The cond related criticism is that Google's scanning of books is actually illegal. This allegation has led to Google becoming mired in (陷入) a legal battle who scope and complexity makes the Jarndyce and Jarndyce ca in Charles Dickens' Bleak Hou look straightforward.
At its centre, however, is one simple issue: that of copyright. The inconvenient fact about most books, to which Google has arguably paid insufficient attention, is that they are protected by copyright. Copyright laws differ from country to country, but in general protection extends for the duration of an author's life and for a substantial period afterwards, thus allowing the author's heirs to benefit. (In Britain and America, this post-d
eath period is 70 years.) This means, of cour, that almost all of the books published in the 20th century are still under copyright – and the last century saw more books published than in all previous centuries combined. Of the roughly 40 million books in US libraries, for example, an estimated 32 million are in copyright. Of the, some 27 million are out of print.
Outside the US, Google has made sure only to scan books that are out of copyright and thus in the "public domain" (works such as the Bodleian's first edition of Middlemarch, which anyone can浓情中南read for free on Google Books Search).
But, within the US, the company has scanned both in-copyright and out-of-copyright works. Inits defence, Google points out that it displays only small gments of books that are in copyright– arguing that such displays are "fair u". But critics allege that by making electronic copies of震的组词 the books without first eking the permission of copyright holders, Google has committed piracy.
"The key principle of copyright law has always been that works can be copied only once
小班幼儿authors have expressly given their permission," says Piers Blofeld, of the Sheil Land literary agency in London. "Google has reverd this – it has simply copied all the works without bothering toask."
In 2005, the Authors Guild of America, together with a group of US publishers, launched aclass action suit (集团诉讼) against Google that, after more than two years of negotiation, endedwith an announcement last October that Google and the claimants had reached an out-of-courtttlement. The full details are complicated - the text alone runs to 385 pages– and trying tosummari it is no easy task. "Part of the problem is that it is basically incomprehensible," saysBlofeld, one of the ttlement's most vocal British critics.
Broadly, the deal provides a mechanism for Google to compensate authors and publishers who rights it has breached (including giving them a share of any future revenue it generates fromtheir works). In exchange for this, the rights holders agree not to sue Google in future.
