Copyrights question

About a decade ago, libraries around the world began digitizing their books. These digitized libraries serve two purposes. First of all they make books available to a wider audience today. Secondly they’re a great way to preserve very old, unique or precious copies for future generations.

About four years ago Google not only joined the initiative, but also started their own Book Search. At Google they developed a scanning procedure especially for the most vulnerable books. This procedure is hidden in a shroud of mystery, Google won’t disclose any information about it. Around 1 million books have been scanned so far, Google says another 6 million to go.

All these books are thoroughly indexed and can be searched at books.google.com. The search results can be sorted in a list view or as book covers. Small portions of the book can be opened to check whether it's really what you've been looking for. If the book isn’t protected by copyright, users can download the whole thing. If it is protected, or if users want to read an original, they can use Book Search to find copies to buy or borrow.

Another great Google tool that opens up a whole new world!

I wonder what the catch is for Google. Spending years and years to scan all these books must cost a fortune and just making them available to the public domain will not make them a penny. I wonder whether they will start to charge us by the time they’ve scanned everything worth collecting. That in itself brings up the question whether Google will be locking up the public domain in the end. Will they get a kind of new claimed copyrights by putting in that much time and effort? Would this mean they won’t share these books the way they are shared right now amongst libraries? Interesting questions, I haven’t seen no answers so far…