Googled Books I: Will Google be to books as Napster was to music?

Google is currently developing an ambitious new service to provide users access to its growing digital library of books. See Google's Books in Print Search

Google is also reportedly going to scan all kinds of books to make both copyrighted as well as public domain books available online. For many supporters of the project, Google's new Digital Books Library will be a boon for out of print and rare books.

However, many authors and publishers are very concerned that the new service will mean the loss of revenue as well the beginning of the end of printed books. See IT AsiaOne - Google to Put Copyright Laws to the Test

Will this development become a new Copyright threat to books as Napster was to music? Unlikely. Napster was a peer to peer solution that allowed uncontrolled copying and distribution of copyrighted music. Google Print is a search engine that will help users locate books, quotations and reference material to information inside books and much of the material though digitised will not be readily available for the public to download.

So, fortunately for the publishing industry Google is planning to only make selective pages downloadable and freely available for books that are protected by Copyright. This would as they hope - be in compliance with the Fair Use provisions of the US Copyright Law. The problem is, new technology threats to old ways of creating revenue - no matter how small or unlikely - is invariably seen by content owners and developers as serious threat until proven otherwise.

For those books where protection has since lapsed, whole books will be made both searchable and downloadable. For these books even publishers now will be hard put to squeeze a margin of profit by reprints.