This is one of the more reasoned reactions to the news that Google is slowing down its digital library plans in the face of complaints from copyright holders. Turns out the folks holding copyrights on works in those university libraries area bit skittish about having their works scanned by Google.
John Robb’s Weblog: Google vs. Publishers
“This battle has major repercussions. So far, it is being characterized as the classic x vs. y, that the media likes so much. It is more nuanced than that. It’s my understanding that Google is going to digitize and index all works, including copyrighted works not specifically excluded by the rights owners. If a work is copyrighted, Google will only display a short snippet and a link to a book store (or perhaps local library) where you can buy/borrow it. This is hardly “posting the work to the Internet,” and more like an upgrade to the Dewey decimal system.“