Google Book Issue

The Internet is taking capitalism to a whole new level with the Google Books issue. Google wants to put books online to be printed off by whomever feels the need, at a cost. The writers of the books online would get royalties, but to the books which are unclaimed or dead authors, google will reap the benefits. This is wrong on a few levels. First, google should not be recieving royalties for ANY transactions! They scanned a book, big deal. Why should they recieve compensation for someone else's work? Second, they are making the regular search engine, and regular librairies basically obsolete. If no one has to access anything but google, then that is considered a monopoly. I am opposed to the entire idea, not just of google doing this, but also of the microsoft exploration of the matter and Europeana. I believe that no other country/corporation would have an issue if they had had success in this endeavor themselves; it was just a matter of time. Microsoft, Amazon, France and Germany are all leaders of the march against the Google Books project. Right now Google is in a 125 million dollar settlement suit to try and get rights for a book rights registry.
People are divided on this topic. Some say copyrighted works are controband from being copied, and that it shouldnt matter if it is digital or not. This is an international matter due to the fact that other nations across the globe have authors that are being used. France states that what google is doing is against the law in thier country, yet they openly support the European version of this idea, Europea. The Authors guild is in support, i think mainly because the authors will get paid. The Europeans are also complaining that the documentation from google are written in only English. Doesnt most of the world speak English? Or have a language tool online they could scan the document and translate it easily.
There are a few concerns with this projects discretion as well. Will the books be censored for content? If an under age person can go in and copy explicit materials, can google be sued? How will google protect our children and the authors? Google is a part of so many other technological devises already, such as search engines, cell phones, imaging, email, ect. Many fear that google is trying to take over as a monopoly, much like microsoft was in the 90's. With competition that stiff, it would make exposure to other technology difficult. I know if I need help, or someone I know does, the first thing that pops into my mind is 'I dont know, google it'. It would be just as easy to ask jeeves, or use bing.com. For some reason, the google search engine is a much wider known source.

Intellectual devices play a minimal role in my life (Or maybe I just dont realize how much it controls me). I can turn on my computer. I have a cell phone, and yes it would be nice to have a camera on my phone, but i dont have one yet. i dont feel the need to have email sent to my phone or play games. I have a life, and dont believe in letting computer technology rule me. I would rather go back to having a house phone, it is much cheaper. Cell phone rates are ridiculous. I know in the 15 yrs since cell phone technology started being widespread, alot of things have changed. I remember when texting was new... lol. I wouldnt even have cable if i didnt have kids. I am definitely guilty of not keeping up with the technology demand. And I am happy that way. But it has made things both more simple and more complicated. Digitalization has made everything faster, easier to store in one location, less paper to use and more accuracy in numbers. I also enjoy the flexibility of my online classes. But if the computer crashes or you lose power, there is no retrieving the information easily. So to be safe, you would have to print anything important and have a back up copy of whatever it is on disk; And miss class should a blackout occur.

All of this is much to think ponder over....