[goldenvirginia]

not sure if i totally understand this, but basically it sounds like google are wanting to digitise books from libraries, which is really cool, but they also want the copyright laws? does anyone know the implication of this? doesnt seem quite good to have one global company controlling it?

http://www.friction.tv/index.php?vid=279

[Steven]

A good read here

[Knyght_byte]

To my mind for factual information its a very good idea, providing Google dont charge anyone for the ability to search....

However I dont think they should be allowed to do this for fiction....

[Mr.D]

I read a lot of books over the course of a year (at least one a week) and I'd love for the electronic paper book technologies to take off. I'd much rather carry my library around than my music collection: think ipod for books.

I wouldn't mind paying for digital versions of new books either.

[Steve.J.Davies]

Depends on the books - many books are out of copyright but still the publishers put copyright notices in them....
can't follow the salon.com link as it pops up a tracking gif and so gets blocked by my proxy. but did find this:-
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/okbooks.html