

Scanning world's every book means turning many, many pages - michjeanty
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jMr8wAZqhesLHmGt1TW9jtUT04EgD9090FB80

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jrockway
It sounds like the article is giving Google a hard time:

 _Brewster Kahle, founder and digital librarian of the Internet Archive at the
Open Content Alliance, said Google may be trying to "lock up the public
domain" by making proprietary copies of works whose copyrights have expired —
which includes the vast majority of the world's books_

They have a "license" to do anything they want with the books (that's what
public domain is), and they chose to develop scanning and OCR technology to
make money off of that. Why is that wrong? If another company wants that
database, they should get some scanners and start scanning.

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lpgauth
I don't know if it's only me, but I don't like reading books online.

I like the touch and smell of paper. Also, I guess there is a psychological
aspect as you can feel how much you've read and how close you are to finish.

Anyways, if someone could create a device that mimics books but digital... I
would buy it. Maybe a couple of OLED screen with the feel of paper?

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Hexstream
I think buying a physical book, even if it's available for free online,
denotes and reinforces a commitment to read it. For example, I could read SICP
online anytime but I know I'll read it only when I buy it.

