The Point of Google Print

vinohradska writes "Eric Schmidt has written a good article called the The point of Google Print. It clearly lays out the argument against the current lawsuit: 'Even those critics who understand that copyright law is not absolute argue that making a full copy of a given work, even just to index it, can never constitute fair use. If this were so, you wouldn't be able to record a TV show to watch it later or use a search engine that indexes billions of Web pages.'"

Comments

Re:Publisher's Have a Bug Up Their Ass

[ornil]

Trust me, knowing that a book exists is already very helpful, even if you can't obtain it immediately. If a book is in print, then you can buy it. If it's in the public domain you can access it immediately. If it is out of print, but not in the public domain, then you may still be able to buy it used. Even if you can't, your local public library can obtain just about any book that's been published for you. If it is something extremely rare, but you really need it, then it is still useful, because you can fly over, or contact the library by phone and explain your circumstances, or find someone with access to the library who can obtain the necessary information.

If you don't know whether the books exists, you can do neither of those.