BOOK SEARCH BY GOOGLE
Google Inc.’s Book Search is scanning books in undisclosed locations that will eventually lead users to all the estimated 50-100 million books in the world. Funding from Google funds the scanning of these books for its Book Search function, allowing its 28 partner libraries to cut their digitizing costs. The function enables a user to find a book on any topic and read a small portion. If the book is not copyright-protected, users may download the whole book. If it is protected, or if the user wants to read the original, they can use Book Search to find copies. Some are concerned Google may be trying to "lock up the public domain" by making proprietary copies of works whose copyrights have expired, which includes the vast majority of the world’s books.
(Christian Post 4/28/08)