At its centre, however, is one simple issue: that of copyright. The inconvenient fact about most books, to which Google has arguably paid insufficient attention, is that they are protected by copyright. Copyright laws differ from country to country, but in general protection extends for the duration of an authors life and for a substantial period afterwards, thus allowing the authors heirs to benefit. (In Britain and America, this post-death period is 70 years.) This means, of course, that almost all of the books published in the 20th century are still under copyright and the last century saw more books published than in all previous
centuries combined. Of the roughly 40 million books in US libraries, for example, an estimated 32 million are in copyright. Of these, some 27 million are out of print.
Outside the US, Google has made sure only to scan books that are out of copyright and thus in the public domain (works such as the Bodleians first edition of Middlemarch, which anyone can read for free on Google Books Search).
But, within the US, the company has scanned both in-copyright and out-of-copyright works. In its defense, Google points out that it displays only small segments of books that are in copyright arguing that such displays are fair use. But critics allege that by making electronic copies of these books without first seeking the permission of copyright holders, Google has committed piracy.
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