It was one of many to take Google to court for digitising its books without explicit permission.

BBC: Fine for Google over French books

If digitising existing images can be made easy enough, it could open up a vast market in reprints.

ECONOMIST: Digital photography

And it banged a drum for digitising all books everywhere, making all knowledge available, and of course widening the market for Ad Words.

FORBES: Google + and The First $20 Billion Thought Leadership Bonus

The expensive process of digitising the archive's treasures will continue, but only for documents that lots of people are likely to pay to see.

ECONOMIST: Trouble at the National Archives

As I noted in my original piece, the issue that concerns me is not about Google digitising the world's books, but about only Google doing so.

BBC: Turning the page on Google books

Google, an internet giant that has been scanning and digitising books for inclusion in its search engine, now offers thousands of books that are in the public domain free on mobile phones.

ECONOMIST: Electronic-book readers

By digitising the outline of each jumping gibbon frame by frame, they revealed how its centre of mass moved, and they calculated the forces needed to propel 6kg (a stone) of hairy ape through the air.

BBC: Gibbons' extraordinary jumps 'down to technique'