Google -- the project stops -- at least for a few months

I spent a long weekend away from the news and the computer, only to return and find that Google is taking a break from its scanning project. The announcement in Google Blog said:

So now, any and all copyright holders --– both Google Print partners and non-partners -- can tell us which books they'’d prefer that we not scan if we find them in a library. To allow plenty of time to review these new options, we won'’t scan any in-copyright books from now until this November.

This will affect the materials being scanned at Harvard, Michigan and Stanford. Google is only being given public domain works from New York Public Library and Oxford University.

Google may have thought itself big enough to get the publishers to play its game, but that is not true. People are protective of their intellectual property (as is Google) . This option for publishers does put the onus in their hands, but it at least allows them to tell Google that what materials should not be digitized. Perhaps some publishers will even say that all of their materials should be excluded.

This remains a story that is very interesting to watch....