Google Providing Free Book Downloads

In a move sure to further rankle publishers and copyright holders, Google is enabling users to download entire public domain books in PDF format.

Google has expanded its much-debated Google Book Search to enable users to download complete copies of public domain books in PDF format. When using Google Book Search, users can access a complete version via the services’ Full View button; if the book is in the public domain and a complete version is available, a Download button will be shown.

Google is not enabling the download of books which are under current copyright; at present, Google will only shows brief excerpts and bibliographic information. Google Book Search has come under fire from publishers and copyright holders, who argue Google can’t legally even scan the books in questions to create a digital representation of the text without obtaining explicit permission from each and every copyright holder. Google is currently partnered with some very large academic libraries—including Stanford, Oxford, the University of Michigan, the New York Public Library, and Harvard—to scan their entire collections.

Nonetheless, while current copyright works aren’t available, public domain offerings include a great many cultural and scientific classics, including works by Dante, Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, Laurence Sterne, Simon Bolivar, and many more.