A snippet from the NY Times

This appeared in an article on media post, and fankly, I'm not sure how I feel about this... on the one hand what Google is doing isn't so different from say one's ability to open a book at a bookstore and read a few pages. I think the central question that needs to be asked is: how many people would or do actually read an entire book online?

Microsoft Attacks Google's Copyright Policy
The New York Times
Microsoft Corp. Tuesday launched a major offensive against Google, its closest rival in the Internet business, according to Reuters, saying the search giant takes an arrogant and possibly illegal approach to copyright protection. In a series of remarks, Thomas Rubin, Microsoft's associate general counsel, told the Association of American Publishers that Google's move into new media had essentially come at the expense of book, video and software publishers. "Google takes the position that everything may be freely copied unless the copyright owner notifies Google and tells it to stop," Rubin said, adding that his client Microsoft asks copyright owners for permission first.

"In essence, Google is saying to you and to other copyright owners: 'Trust us, we'll only show snippets (of copyrighted text), we won't harm you, we'll promote you,' " he added.

Indeed, Google is holding publishers hostage by taking control of their copyrights; the question for the court to decide is whether Google is allowed to copy, display and profit from pieces of copyrighted content (as it does with Google News) without consent as long as it doesn't profit outright from the whole. The AAP will welcome Rubin's comments, especially as the organization sits on a 16-month copyright lawsuit it filed against Google for digitizing copyrighted book content without gaining prior consent.