The Times informs me that the Justice Department has opened an antitrust inquiry into the whole thing: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/technology/internet/29google.html?hpw
If I were a Googler, I would be telling myself that copyright is in itself evil, and thus the Google Book Project is not evil, since it's telling copyright where to shove it. Which is an argument that I can understand, and the Project as originally envisioned seems to have had potential. But they're screwing up the execution by the numbers if they're going to try to defraud living authors and/or copyright-holders under the cover of the law.
no subject
If I were a Googler, I would be telling myself that copyright is in itself evil, and thus the Google Book Project is not evil, since it's telling copyright where to shove it. Which is an argument that I can understand, and the Project as originally envisioned seems to have had potential. But they're screwing up the execution by the numbers if they're going to try to defraud living authors and/or copyright-holders under the cover of the law.