Google's battle over library books

Ten months ago, Google announced that it planned to scan, digitize and make searchable the collections of five of the largest libraries in the world. At first, it seemed like one of those nifty ideas that regularly percolate out of the young search giant.

But there's a big catch: Many of those books are protected by copyrights, and Google is requiring copyright holders to opt out of the scanning process if they don't want their books in libraries to be searchable.

That's raised plenty of hackles among publishers, who argue that they--not Google--should control who can see and search the books. And last week, five leading publishers filed suit against Google to stop the program.

"It's a commercial use" of the books and therefore a copyright violation, said Ralph Oman, a lawyer and former Register of Copyrights for the U.S. Copyright office. "This is masquerading as an educational use (which wouldn't be an obvious violation), but from Google's point of view this is a money-making exercise."