Casey Newton wrote an article for CNET describing "Google and the World Brain," a documentary by filmmaker Ben Lewis. Lewis' film covers the topic of Google's efforts to digitize books from libraries spanning the globe. As far as I can tell from the article, the film seems to be heavily slanted:
The trouble, as writer William Gibson is quoted as saying in the film: "Google is not ours." Sure, the company may make millions of books searchable today, critics say. But what would stop Google from later deciding to restrict that information in a severe way, or to charge for access?
I'm not sure why this is considered to be such a problem. It isn't as if Google is destroying the books after they scan them; the original copies of the books remain intact. If Google decided to restrict the information in any way, it would still be possible for the information to be obtained via alternate means. Charging for access, likewise, should not be an issue since Google is providing an archival and curation service.
Not every venture is evil, folks.