google's online (searchable) library

It's been said 7 percent of all online material is written by adults and the rest by teens and preteens who have nothing better to do.

The following news bulletin obviously changes that number by a significant amount as google is just in its initial stage of releasing books to be made available to everyone with an online connection.

Washington - Google on Thursday launched its controversial effort to digitize millions of books for online viewing - but said it would limit access to any copyrighted material for now.

The internet search giant said the initial collection will include "public domain" works - those without current copyright protection - in an apparent effort to ease concerns that have led to legal challenges.

Google said in a statement: "Because they're out of copyright, these cultural artifacts can be read in their entirety online at print.google.com..., where anyone can search and browse every page.

www.news24.com...

print.google.com...

I didn't think much of it at first but then I tried it out. It really is worth checking out.

This obviously is a huge breakthrough in technology and as such is going to spur legal battles like the whole p2p incident.

[edit on 11-5-2005 by websurfer]

At first I thought cool, books online. But then I looked into it and saw only the table of contents and index shown. lol You can search through books without browsing through them.


[edit on 11-5-2005 by websurfer]

The only thing that sucks is that it will generally only let you browse within a few pages of something you find in a search. There are work-arounds, like doing a search and selecting the next page, things like that.

Enjoy it while you can, the Publishers hate this system and are trying to sue it out of existance.

God, I hate all this copyright BS!

Lets say there is a nuclear war and we all die. 10,000 years later a civillisation on another planet studies and perfects their space travel. They use a telescope to see our planet and are excited to see faint images of structures. They mount a huge expedition to travel here and once they land everything is gone except for a few computers. So they log on to these PCs and try to find out who we were and what happend to us, only to discover they can't access any information because apperently its all copyright protected!!!! So they go home pissed....

Really glad this is out. It's a great creation, and something that is really looking forward. (As Google so often does)

I look forward to the full version. This is the future.

Originally posted by Atomix
God, I hate all this copyright BS!

Lets say there is a nuclear war and we all die. 10,000 years later a civillisation on another planet studies and perfects their space travel. They use a telescope to see our planet and are excited to see faint images of structures. They mount a huge expedition to travel here and once they land everything is gone except for a few computers. So they log on to these PCs and try to find out who we were and what happend to us, only to discover they can't access any information because apperently its all copyright protected!!!! So they go home pissed....

You've been watchin' too much Twilight Zone!!

Now let's say you wrote a book and you sacrificed large sums of potential money (a publisher sponsors your book). Would you want your book available for free on the internet? What do you think that would do for your sales?

Now; instead, let's say only 5-10% of your book is available for free at Google. Wouldn't that be free advertisement? If your book is good (it has to be if a publisher sponsored you) wouldn't this help overall sales?

I think Google is on the right track and this will turn into is publishers paying Google to make their clients' material available for a fee!! Gotta love free-market economy!!!!

I just might buy some Google Stock!!:w: