Today, I read this article from the New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/070205fa_fact_toobin?page=1. It basically states that for several years Google has been teaming up with universities to scan books into their system. At this point, they are ready to make this “copying” widespread. As a result, seveal legal implications stem from this. Google is going to be offering a service called “Google Books” where they will be offering whole books online, some in the public domain and many copywrite protected. Many publishers are ready to sue for infringement, but Google maintains that 1. Copying books into a database is a compilation, not unlike a web search. 2. The use is transformative, because people will be looking for a term in a book, not reading the whole book. I think that Google is going to have some severe problems with this. Although Google maintains that this is like an “online card catalogue”, how can you compare a card catalogue to full copied books? If you are planning to publish a book within the 70+ life catagory, you have to obtain rights to re-publish it. Google is no different. This is not a transformative usage either. It might be a literal “pain in the neck” to read a full book online, but again it is the “full book” and therefore not unlike reading a novel on my couch. This looks like copyright infringement and Google needs to do something if it really wants to use the books as a web search or card catalogue. Perhaps, limiting the amount of the book copied would suffice. But changes are going to be needed for them to prevail in an infringement claim.