Google Print

I've been going back and forth in my head over Google Print, Google's project to make the contents of entire libraries searchable online. There's some debate over whether that constitutes fair use or goes over the line to infringement. Oddly enough, no one has ever, as far as I know, raised hackles over searching web content, a good chunk of which is copyrighted simply by virtue of it being there. From what I've heard so far, I'll accept that the project takes precautions that people will not be able to access full copies of text under copyright, so the project is essentially a souped-up card catalog. As long as those precautions remain effective, I'll side with those who say that free exposure is good for authors. The minute someone hacks the database so that entire works are accessible (I give it a week after it goes online), that goes out the window.

However, I'm siding with the anti-Google publishers on another point. According to this article, when Google digitizes the books, they're making two copies, "using one to index for Internet searching and giving one to the libraries that supply the books to be indexed as 'payment' for access to the books." Put less delicately, in addition to the lofty goals of making the sum total of human knowledge searchable, they're making bootlegs and using them as currency. It's been a while since I've read the copyright laws, but I'm pretty sure that that isn't covered under fair use. It might be legal to rip a record you own to CD, but I'd venture it's infrigement to barter a second CD to the person who let you use his phonograph and CD burner.