Scanning copy makes it more than words

Court Hands Huge Victory to Universities' Digitization Efforts - The Atlantic

That first victory -- that search capability is "transformative" -- is what has scholars in the burgeoning field of digital humanities cheering today... The search capabilities of the HDL have already given rise to new methods of academic inquiry such as text mining." Just because the digitization process does not add anything "new" does not mean the work has not been transformed. Purchasing more copies of the books -- even infinity copies -- would not make search possible.

 The significance of this reading of copyright law can't be overstated. It ties into a debate about whether and by what precise mechanics today's most popular forms of culture are 'new'. For more on that notion, the always-insightful Nick Carr.