Are Copyright Hawks Shooting Themselves In The Foot?

Google has been sued by two authors over its plans to create a searchable archive of academic libraries, and the editors at Wired say that the lawsuit represents a short-sighted attempt to stifle a worthy program. “There are fundamental differences between copying analog works into a digital format for the purposes of piracy, and copying the same works to create a service that conforms to copyright laws in making that data available to the public. What happens on the backend should be of little or no interest to copyright holders, so long as rights are respected on the front end, where control over a work really counts.”