Google, in their library project, plans to digitize the works available in several major research and public libraries, so that their content is searchable through the net. Searching for certain terms/phrases, will show results from books that contain those them, and a couple of sentences before and after the phrase as well as details about the book, author, publisher, etc.
Now, most authors would really cherish this situation, right ? Imagine more people getting to know about them and their work ? I would be thrilled...but no ! The Authors Guild sued Google, alleging that this constitutes a "massive" copyright infringement !
An op-ed article in NY Times, illustrates exactly why this action by the guild is a bad idea...
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