Google's Print Project

[The Jade Knight]

Dude.  Have you read the rest of this thread or even this page?  That's my entire blanking point.

The problem seems to be that you misread my stance.

Now, Googles archive functionality, where they repost webpages that are not theirs rather than snippeting and linking, is a different kettle of fish.  Fortunately, that could be declared illegal and Google could be forced to stop without impacting their search engine or the function of the net as a whole at all.

This is exactly what I'm talking about!  This has gone to court and been upheld as Fair Use.  On the same note, what Google is trying to do now, with the ALA's backing (even court cases are political to a degree), may end up being declared Fair Use.

I'm not saying that it is Fair Use - the fact that they haven't purchased the books calls that into doubt for me, personally, but I say that it still may well be Fair Use.  And I wont condemn it as "copyright infringement" until I see how it pans out.  Intellectual Property and Copyright definitions and concepts are shifting these days.  They're not the same thing they were 100 years ago.

[Skar]

The problem seems to be that you misread my stance.

Except you've never said that before and I have, clearly and in many different contexts, for the last five pages or so.  

Just take your lumps for not reading the thread you were replying to.

This is exactly what I'm talking about!  ... Intellectual Property and Copyright definitions and concepts are shifting these days.  They're not the same thing they were 100 years ago.

True enough.  They are shifting and changing, and rightly so.  I desperately hope that Google doesn't win the right to make copies of books without permission and profit from their use of them.  That would spell the end of self-motivated innovation in the long run.

Incidentally, I only brought up Google's archiving functionality because that sort of activity could be declared illegal and not significantly impact the net.  Whether it's been declared fair use or not isn't germain to the current discussion because it's not comparable to the print project, since Google is not planning to redistribute the books they're copying.  Apples and Oranges.