As we've explained in earlier posts, when it comes to evaluating the proposed Google Books settlement, the principal potential benefit to the public (increased access to books online) must be weighed against the potential drawbacks (impediments to competition, inadequate protection for privacy). Another potential downside for the public in the proposed settlement is the risk of censorship.
The understand the importance of this risk, keep two things in mind. First, while bookstores are entitled to pick and choose their inventory, Google Books hopes to be much more than a simple bookstore. In the words of Google's CEO Eric Schmidt: "Imagine one giant electronic card catalog that makes all the world's books discoverable with just a few keystrokes by anyone, anywhere, anytime." In other words, Google Books will have many characteristics that we associate more with the research libraries from which its books are drawn than with traditional bookstores. Second, as Prof. Geoffrey Nunberg reminds us: "This is almost certainly the Last Library, after all. There's no Moore's Law for capture, and nobody is ever going to scan most of these books again
The analysis goes on to discuss:
+ Censorship by Rightsholders
+ Censorship by Google
+ Censorship by Government
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