Re:Libraries are terrible, terrible institutions. (Score 1)

While for the most part I couldn't agree with you more, you must remember that Google will be selling ad space on those searches whereas the libraries, as you say, only charge for the cost of the copying, and therein lies the difference. As ridiculous as the article may have been and as much as I abhor it and it's principles, it is wrong to make a profit off of other people's work without their knowledge or at least without passing some of the profit along to the owner of the work.

I love what Google is doing and I truly hope they are successful, whether that means that they have to change copyright laws or not, although changing said laws gets us into some extremely dangerous territory. What does someone get to call their own if anyone anywhere can simply copy it and put it on the internet? And what if it's not anyone anywhere and it's only the $90 billion corporations that are allowed to do it because they're the only ones that can afford the lawyers and the lobbyists?

These are dangerous times for our society with questions such as these and it's important to have people on both sides taking these battles to the courts. We can only hope that the courts will be able to look past the conservative revival in this country and do what is just and right under the law and what is just and right for the rest of this century.