Google will begin serving up the entire contents of books and government documents on Thursday, at least those that aren't entangled in a copyright battle over how much material can be scanned.
The list of Google's so-called "public domain" works -- volumes no longer protected by copyright -- include Henry James novels, Civil War histories, Congressional acts and biographies of wealthy New Yorkers.
Google said the material represents the first large batch of public domain books and documents to be indexed in its search engine since the Silicon Valley company announced an ambitious library-scanning project late last year.
The program is designed to make more library material available through a few clicks of a computer mouse and attract more people to click on the highly profitable ads that Google displays on its website.
During the next several years, Google wants to create digital versions of millions of books stacked in the New York Public Library and four university libraries -- Stanford, Harvard, Michigan and Oxford.
But a bitter copyright dispute is threatening Google's plans. The Authors Guild and five major publishers are suing to prevent Google from scanning copyrighted material in the libraries without explicit permission. Because it plans to show only snippets from copyrighted books, Google argues its scanning project constitutes "fair use" of the material.
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Sony backpeddles -- fast: After a chorus of criticism, Sony's music division is distributing a free software patch to reveal hidden files that automatically installed to hard drives when some of its music CDs were played on personal computers.
The offending technology was designed to thwart music piracy.
Sony BMG Music Entertainment and its partner, Britain's First 4 Internet, said they decided to offer the patch as a precaution, not because of any security vulnerability, which some critics had alleged.
"What we decided to do is take extra precautionary steps to allay any fears," said Mathew Gilliat-Smith, First 4 Internet's CEO. "There should be no concern here."
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No music from Samsung: Contrary to reports last week, Samsung Electronics has no plans to enter the online music business with a system similar to Apple's iTunes service, an executive said Thursday.
South Korean media earlier this week quoted Choi Gee-sung, president of Samsung's digital media business, as saying the company planned such a service, remarks later confirmed by the company.
On Thursday, Choi said there had been "some misunderstanding" of comments he made to Korean reporters late last week.
He said rather than go into the online music business itself, Samsung wants to work to help those whose software is harder to use than iTunes to develop platforms that make services easier and more attractive to customers.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
