Stealing Google’s laptops
Richard Charkin, the CEO of publisher Macmillan, stole some laptops from the Google booth at Book Expo America last weekend. He was trying to prove a point about Google’s quest to digitalise books.
Our justification for this appalling piece of criminal behaviour? The owner of the computer had not specifically told us not to steal it. If s/he had, we would not have done so. When s/he asked for its return, we did so. It is exactly what Google expects publishers to expect and accept in respect to intellectual property.
I would like to comment on this but I can’t. On one hand, Google brings thousands of customers to AbeBooks every day and on the other hand publishers keep publishing books that people want to buy from us.
