For anyone interested in copyright and the implications of the Google Book Search project this series of interviews (audio recordings) is a must listen.

First Monday podcasts
DIRECT LINK to MP3
DIRECT LINK to lecture by Vaidhyanathan

Siva Vaidhyanathan is pithy and interesting, and is highly critical of Google’s mass digitization process known as Google Book Search.  He presents many interesting points, many of which deal with Google’s pending court case regarding its claim that the Book Search service is fair use because fair use should be, according to Google, determined at the user-experience point of interaction.  So, because Google only shows the user a “snippet” of the copyrighted material, the service constitutes fair use.  Vaidhyanathan critisizes Google’s interpretation because fair use was never intended for mass infringements—it is only fair use if the infringements occur one at a time for each user. 

Of course, in Canada fair use is non-existent, as Siva notes.  Fair dealings seems to offer some more latitude when it comes to mass or serial infringements, but only goes so far:

“There was no secondary infringement by the Law Society.  The Law Society’s fax transmissions of copies of the respondent publishers’ works to lawyers in Ontario were not communications to the public.  While a series of repeated fax transmissions of the same work to numerous different recipients might constitute communication to the public in infringement of copyright, there was no evidence of this type of transmission having occurred in this case.  Nor did the Law Society infringe copyright by selling copies of the publishers’ works.  Absent primary infringement, there can be no secondary infringement.  Finally, while it is not necessary to decide the point, the Great Library qualifies for the library exemption.” (http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2004/2004scc13/2004scc13.html)