The book effort suffered a setback this week when a federal judge in New York rejected a deal between Google and publishers that would have blessed the scanning of out-of-print books whose copyright holders are unknown.
"Many of us are objecting because we have been working together for years on the mass scanning of out-of-print books - and have worked to get books online for far longer than Google - and Google's 'settlement' could hurt our efforts, " wrote Brewster Khale of the Internet Archive in a blog post earlier this week.
Is this, then, a test case for publishers who could work in tandem with the fans of underappreciated and out-of-print books to bring them back into circulation?
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E-mails, out-of-print books, blogs, research papers in Arabic--any of them might contain something useful to someone.
When I was COO at AbeBooks, a marketplace for used, rare and out-of-print books, we thought we could expand our site into new books.
Also, many of Google's books are out-of-print volumes from before 1923.
This has already started to happen among primarily mid-list authors, who do reasonably well and then their books go out of print.
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In some cases, when the books had fallen out of print, Gerda obtained the rights for free.
While his books have been out of print for decades, they once had enormously wide currency and were prized for their quirky but upbeat messages about self-reliance and capitalism.
And I take pride that those books have never gone out of print.
Between 40 and 50 of his books are in print in Italy and France, but he is out of print in England.
Having already digitized twelve million books, including out-of-print titles, Google will have a far greater selection than Amazon or Apple.
The much-heralded project called Google Print would provide free online copies of out-of-copyright books and newer books still protected by copyrights, making them searchable with snippets of text available online.
The books online range from classics to manga comics plus out-of-print titles and textbooks.
They also point out that new technologies such as print on demand, which makes printing short runs of physical books more economical, should help them squeeze more money out of the old-fashioned format.
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Material which is out of print in the US, but still available for sale elsewhere, will not be added to Google Books, unless consent is granted.
Those curious to relive the spill's details should get hold of the excellent, out-of-print book by Art Davidson, In the Wake of the Exxon Valdez (Sierra Club Books).
The problem is the sad reality that the vast majority of books are released, have a short life for better or worse, then go out of print and are never seen again.
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