2by4 - 12:17 am on Aug 13, 2005 (gmt 0)

"<added>G now needs the world's best PR specialists, not the world's best engineers."

Google just needs to stop listening to their phd collection all the time, and listen to people with common sense when it comes to these types of questions. This reaction was totally predictable. Google's attitude towards copyrighted works has little if anything to do with the actual reality of copyright law. The publishers know this, their legal teams who sent google the first unhappy communications about this plan know this, only google seems left blissfully unaware of the the facts. But they are primarily programmers after all, so no surprise there.

I agree with martinibuster 100% on this matter. Of course it's no accident that Google has been hiring away key MS employees either, might as well, if you want to play that game, might as well grab some of the other teams best players. But then you're playing that game, gets harder to keep up those cute little company slogans any longer.