In Challenge to Google, Yahoo Will Scan Books

In an alliance with the Internet Archive Yahoo is announcing its own book-scanning project. It differs from Google's project in that the entire text of the books will be available and any search engine can make use of the index. They'll start with public domain books and then try to convince copyright holders to release their books under a Creative Commons license.

When it comes to copyrighted materials, the newly formed group appears to be taking a more cautious approach by seeking permission from copyright holders and by making works available though a Creative Commons license, whereby the copyright holder stipulates how a work can be used.

"Other projects talk about snippets," said Brewster Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization in San Francisco that is building a vast digital library. "We don't talk about snippets. We talk about books."