Legal Commentary

Google – public domain books printed on demand

By David Canton

The Google print project to digitize the world’s books has been controversial.  I think this is one of those things that will impact us in ways most of us fail to grasp today.  

Take, for example, public domain out of copyright books – of which there are apparently more than 2 million.  It stands to reason that there is a long tail demand for those books that in total could be significant – but for any given book the demand is too small to print and distribute in the traditional manner.

One could of course read virtual copies courtesy of Google – but it may take a long time before we are collectively comfortable with that, rather than holding the book in our hands.

Enter the Espresso Book Machine.   Choose your book, and the machine prints, binds and spits it out in a few short minutes – for under $10.00

Full post as published by eLegal Canton on September 17, 2009 (boomark / email).