Get interested in GooglePrint.  It's one of the best plans that Google has, and it needs to happen.  No one is going to bring more books to the attention of the world -- and help more authors -- than Google.  Here are all the reasons that we should applaud Google for going forward with GooglePrint, and all the reasons why Google will prevail in the (sadly) recently-filed lawsuit.

1.  Google had a great idea. Let's make the books in the libraries of Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, and Michigan searchable.  (Note -- the idea wasn't "let's give the books away."  Not at all.  The point is to make them searchable, not takeable.)  There are all these wonderful books that these great libraries want to interest people in, but they're up flights of stairs, on dusty shelves, and in darkness.  Let's make them searchable so that people know they're out there. 

2.  The libraries have a great public mission: to bring knowledge to people.  (I love libraries.  I especially love reading rooms.)  But the libraries don't have the money or the resources to make their texts searchable.  Google, as it happens, does.  Google is great at manipulating enormous amounts of information in a user-friendly way.  If someone else were doing this, that would be great.  Sometimes libraries do make entire works available online -- the New York Public Library made hundreds of thousands of public domain images available for public searching.  But the great libraries of Harvard and Stanford and Michigan and Oxford looked over Google's plan to make snippets available and thought it fit their public mission.

3.  Hear that word, "snippets"?  That's all that Google proposes to do.  In response to search queries, people will be able to browse the full text of public domain materials (material no longer protected by copyright).  But when it comes to books that ARE still covered by copyright, users will only be able to see a few sentences surrounding the search term.  That's a key fact that people seem to be missing.  You won't get the whole book.  In fact, you won't even get a whole page (unless the holder of copyright has affirmatively allowed Google to show entire pages).  And you'll only get three results for any given book's use of a particular term.

4.  Sure, I guess, people could carefully search and search for hours, and attempt to build up an entire book, but that's both painful and silly.  And unavoidable.  Google has created a system that has checks in place that these great libraries thought were fine.  I think they're fine too.  The aim, goal, purpose, thrust, point of the program is to reveal resources that might have something to do with the search term you're interested in.  (Try GoogleScholar -- it's pretty neat.)  Then you'll go and get the whole book from your local library if it looks really relevant. And your library will be delighted to help you!

5.  Everyone does research online.  What author wouldn't want to be part of the pool that we look to for research information?  Who wouldn't want to be noticed?

Here's what a screenshot looks like from the libraries project:

See?  That's all you get.

6.  When Google first heard last month that some publishers were unhappy about GooglePrint, they stopped scanning books and said they wouldn't scan any more until November.  And Google said that if a publisher told them that they didn't want particular books to be part of the library project, they'd honor these requests.

7.  It's impossible for Google to say to all publishers (what a big world!) "tell us which books you WANT us to scan, and we'll do it."  (Imagine running a search engine on this basis.) So Google is doing the next best possible thing -- giving people an easy way to opt out of the project.

8. Now, some authors are upset, and they have sued.  They're saying they're not upset about the snippets.  They're saying they're upset about the complete scanned copy that Google has made in order to make the snippets available.  These complete scanned copies aren't public.  Google has to make these copies in order to make the snippets happen.

9.  All computers do is copy.  Copyright law has this idea of strict liability -- no matter what your intent is, if you make a copy without authorization, you're an infringer.  So computers are natural-born automatic infringers.  Copyright law and computers are always running into conflict -- we really need to rewrite copyright law.  But even without rewriting copyright law, what Google plans to do is lawful.

10. What makes Google not an infringer is the affirmative defense of fair use.  Google says, in effect, "yes, a copy is an infringement.  But it's justified."  There is no way that Google can make the Great Library of Alexandria open its doors to curious outsiders without (initially) making a private, unsold copy.

11.  Under the Sec. 107 fair use factors, there's a well-known 2003 9th Circuit case called Kelly v. Arriba Soft that fits the Google facts extremely well. Arriba made thumbnail (small) versions of online pictures available in response to search requests.  Like Google, Arriba had to make copies of the original material in order to do this.  And the 9th Circuit found that Arriba's use was privileged as a fair use.

12.  Like Arriba, Google is not trying to sell copies of these original books.  Google, like Arriba, is providing a useful tool.  Google, like Arriba, is copying entire books in order to make the library project happen, but it has to do that in order for its search engine to function.  In fact, Arriba was making a tiny version of the whole work available -- Google isn't doing that.  It's only making a tiny portion of the whole work available.  In the course of doing that, it has to make an intermediate copy -- like many other transformative processes, this one starts with a chunky first step. 

13.  The authors who are suing are claiming that they'd like to license their works for online searching themselves -- and they're free to do that.  They can simply ask Google not to include them in Google's pool.  Their claim is that that's too much of a burden.  Phooey.  Google's inclusion of their books in the searchable pool can only help these authors, not hurt them.

14.  What Google plans to do with books is worth cheering for.  Sure, they're ambitious.  Sure, they're rich.  But I don't think this project is aimed at supplanting purchases of books.  Far from it -- these dusty tomes will see the light of the digital age because of the Google scanners.  People are buying more and more books these days because of Amazon, and I see no reason why that effect won't be amplified by having Google make searchable texts available.

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I know it's fashionable to be dubitante about Google these days, but I refuse to do it with respect to this program.  I love books, I love libraries, and Google is serving the best interests of both with snippets framed by clear (lovely, really) interfaces.  Go, Google.