Google Book Project Tries to Placate the Critics: Will It Be Enough?

This article appears courtesy of Boston-based Sunstein Kann Murphy & Timbers LLP.

The Google book project began in 2002 as an effort to digitize millions of books. In December 2004, Google announced that it had entered into agreements with the libraries of Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, and the University of Oxford, as well as the New York Public Library to "digitally scan books from their collections so that users worldwide can search them in Google." Google's press release said that it would make available "brief excerpts" of copyrighted material but that its use of these works would comport with copyright law.