To explain my full-text postings: For a variety of reasons that would take too long to explain in comments, posting of entire Web-based articles about which one is commenting on a not-for-profit Web site is almost never an infringement. And posting them on a for-profit site is rarely and infringement.

The reason is the “self-help” or “notice-and-takedown” provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This and the landmark case Kelly v. ArribaSoft made clear that different copyright norms exist for the Web world and the real world.

That said, Google has built its entire Web search empire on the act of copying Web sites into its index in total, without permission, without compensation. And that’s good.

But in Book Search, Google is reaching into the real world and forcing it to comply with the norms of the Web world. And that’s not necessarily good. Or, at least, it’s likely to cause more trouble than it solves because courts will recoil.

This is all in the context of Hollywood and Microsoft trying to undermine the “notice-and-takedown” provisions of the DMCA.

As I said. Long story.