Originally published November 29 2005
MSN to launch Book Search service
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Microsoft has said that the included text will mainly consist of non-copyrighted material. This will likely avoid the criticism that Google has received in recent months. A beta version of MSN Book Search will launch next year.
US software colossus Microsoft announced plans on Wednesday to launch an online library of books and other written works.
"We are excited to be working with libraries worldwide to digitize and index information from the world's printed materials," said Christopher Payne, corporate vice president of MSN Search.
Microsoft will start its library with books in the public domain then expand it to include other works, according to the company.
Microsoft was evidently trying to avoid the kind of criticism and contention its Internet rival Google provoked with a plan to amass all the world's books in an online archive.
Google's print production manager Adam Smith said at the time that Google would not scan any more copyrighted books until next month, to give publishers a chance to figure out what books they want kept from the planned online library.
In April, 19 European national libraries announced a multi-million euro counter-offensive aimed at blocking Google's quest to create a global virtual library.
The alliance, organized by France's national library, formed after Michigan University and four other top libraries -- Harvard, Stanford, New York Public Library and the Bodleian in Oxford -- made a deal with Google to digitize millions of their books and make them freely available online.
The Google Print project rattled the cultural establishment in Paris, raising fears that French language and ideas could be just sidelined on the World Wide Web, already dominated by English.
French President Jacques Chirac, at one point, asked Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres and France's National Library president Jean-Noel Jeanneney to study how collections in libraries in France and Europe could be more widely and more rapidly distributed via Internet.
Jeanneney said at the time that Google's plan confirmed "the risk of a crushing American domination in the definition of how future generations conceive the world."
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