Google will offer book downloads
Google has expanded its controversial book search service to allow people to download whole copies of books in PDF format to their computers, with the ability to print them out.
The feature will go live Wednesday at the service’s website, said Adam Smith, group product manager of Google Book Search and Google Scholar.
The books available for download will only be those that are in the public domain and thus not protected by copyright, Smith said. Until now, people have been able to read these public-domain books on the Google Book Search Web site, but not download and print them, he said.