Maybe it’s because I don’t own any copyrights? I don’t know, but whatever the reason, I don’t understand this.

It seems various groups are freaking about Google’s plan to scan and archive “millions of books from four top US libraries – the libraries of Stanford, Michigan and Harvard universities, and of the New York Public Library – by 2015,” so they’ve halted the project and agreed not to scan things publishers don’t want added to the project.

The trade body of the US publishing industry, the Association of American Publishers (AAP), said it still has “grave misgivings” about the project.

“Google’s announcement does nothing to relieve the publishing industry’s concerns,” said AAP president Patricia Schroeder in a statement.

Agreeing not to add the material they don’t want added isn’t enough?!

I could go on and ON about this, and the RIAA, and the movie industry’s absurd “loss figures,” but I won’t. I’ll let you read why Eric Flint and Baen give books away for free, and learn how well it works for them. (They give books away for free as loss leaders, and they can demonstrate profits from the practice.)

Hello! I really don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine this policy extended to music and movies. When someone doesn’t buy a movie, the movie industry isn’t losing money! That money isn’t theirs to lose. Gawd!

Ahem.

As for me, my experience with free data is essentially one of spending money. I download MP3s all the time and I buy CDs because of them. I have spent thousands of dollars on eBooks because Project Gutenberg’s free stuff got me addicted to reading on my PDA. I’ve spent a lot of money at Baen.com because of their Free Library, not in spite of it.

It’s trite, it’s anthropomorphic, but hell – I’ll say it anyway: information wants to be free.