• USA Today, Friday, November 11, 2005 12:15 PM

Google's effort to digitize the content of some 15 million books has drawn the ire (to say the least) of authors and publishing executives, who have banded together to sue the company, while continuing to write angry op-ed pieces in national papers. However, a columnist from USA Today says the publishing industry has gotten it all wrong, Google is actually their friend. "The misinformation and misguided attempts to stop these projects are mind-blowing," writes USA Today's Kevin Maney. Only searches for books in the public domain (about 90 percent of the books Google is indexing) would grant full access to content. For works under copyright, a Google search would actually reveal just a snippet of information, providing further access to two pages before and two pages after the original page, but no more. Pages cannot be copied and pasted, nor can they be printed. The process is actually very similar to the Search Inside the Book feature offered by Amazon.com. Maney says that Google's intentions are not to put publishers and authors out of business. Instead, Google Print will most likely help them make more money from their books. A column in Wired makes a similar point.

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