To those who'd like a summary of what this is all about:
A year ago or so Google announced it would be scanning in EVERY SINGLE BOOK in existance to allow them all to be text searched (via google's search technology) in what will essentially be the world's most amazing, extensive and all-encompassing library.
When they said every single book, they ment it. When Google started the project by info-raiding major university librarys; it was also scanning in previously unheard-of rare books that had fallen into obscurity and would likely have been lost forever.
As it stands currently, Google would be legally perfectly safe only allows searching of all books published prior to 1923, which is the current limit to copyright - according to copyright law all books published prior to this are now public domain. So Google's efforts in this already is a huge achievement that will guarentee that all the information in currently existing, created pre-1923 books that Google can get it's hands on will be forever historically preserved.
The problems however is that Google also wishes to make available for searches (in some form) all books, including those that are currently under copyright. Some Publishers and writers are not happy with this saying that it may cut into their profits, while other publishers and writers are happy with it saying that it will actually boost profits. It's much like the MP3 debate - some for, some against.
i especially like this interesting bit mentioned right at the end:
Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford law professor and copyright scholar, likes to tell the story of Thomas Lee and Tinie Causby, two North Carolina farmers, who in 1945 cast themselves at the center of a case that would redefine how society thought of physical property rights. The immediate cause of the Causbys' discomfort was the airplane; military aircraft would fly low over their land, terrifying their chickens, who flew to their death into the walls of the barn. As the Causbys saw it, the military aircraft were trespassing on their land. They claimed that American law held that property rights reached "an indefinite extent, upwards"; that is, they owned the land from the ground to the heavens. If the government wanted to fly planes over the Causbys' land, it needed the Causby's permission, they insisted.
The case, in time, came to the Supreme Court, where Justice William O. Douglas, writing for the Court, was not kind to the Causbys' ancient interpretation of the law. Their doctrine, he said, "has no place in the modern world. The air is a public highway, as Congress has declared. Were that not true, every transcontinental flight would subject the operator to countless trespass suits. Common sense revolts at the idea. To recognize such private claims to the airspace would clog these highways, seriously interfere with their control and development in the public interest, and transfer into private ownership that to which only the public has a just claim."
Google supporters say the publishers' objection rings similar to that of the Causbys'. Just as the airplane rendered the Causbys' rights to the skies incompatible with the modern world, the Web has rendered publishers' right to the digital universe out of tune with modern technology and society.