Google, as everyone knows, runs its operations on quasi-Biblical ethics. Its code of conduct can be summarised in one simple commandment — “Don’t Be Evil”. Yet, when Google announced its Google Books project, perhaps its most ambitious project yet, the uproar was tumultuous. Everyone, it seemed, believed that Google had finally gone over to the dark side.

Why is this such a big deal and why should we care?

The goal of the Google Book project is to digitise all the books in the world, to allow them to be searchable online and accessible everywhere. Google went about implementing this laudable initiative by digitising public domain books from research libraries. This meant that rare books, copies of which had hitherto been available only at a handful of libraries, were now accessible anywhere in the world for free. It offered researchers and scholars unprecedented access to research materials and the ability to continue their research even if they did not have the fortune of physical proximity to the libraries in question.

However, Google did not stop there. It began to digitise copyright protected books and offer public access to limited snippets of this content. This would have been a clear copyright infringement if it wasn’t for the doctrine of fair use that allows limited publication of copyright works for non-commercial purposes. But even with the fig leaf of fair use protection, so significant were the implications of this project that Google was sued for copyright violation in short order.

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