Usually, I don’t write about Google, because googling it is so hard. But ambiguity isn’t enough to thwart my interest in Google’s recent movement in the world of books. Google Books (originally Google Print) has come to a settlement with publishers that will, in essence, make it the default collecting society for out-of-copyright books—with no congressional oversight.

It’s the result of 1337 legal hacking. In 2004 Google announced plans to scan in-copyright books that were part of university holdings, something no other book scanner had talked about doing. In 2005 the publishers and authors sued Google in a move that sent waves of not shocked at all through the copyright community. It was closely watched by sad copyright wonks (moi) as possibly defining fair use online.

Google skipped all that and instead suggested amassing a library no one could duplicate and selling the books. The publishers went along for a cut of the action. Thing is, because Google settled, it’s a deal only Google gets.

[Note: This edition of Fast Forward was originally published in our February 2009 issue]

No doubt you’ve heard that analog TV in the U.S. goes off the air on February 17, replaced by digital TV. If you haven’t heard, you must be in a coma. Four times as much money has been spent to prepare Americans for this transition as the U.S. government spends on adult education each year. Who says politicians can’t get their priorities straight?

I’m dreading the switch. I’m a diehard who still plays vinyl records, subscribes to a daily newspaper, and snatches free TV from the ether with rabbit ears. And I’m not alone. Thirteen percent of U.S. households still depend on TV antennas.

Although the DTV transition won’t affect people who have cable or satellite TV, it does reveal an inherent flaw of digital technology. This flaw afflicts almost all digital media, including the digital photos you take, the digital video you record, and the digital music you download. Digital data can be rendered useless by minor damage that wouldn’t matter if the media were in analog form.

At my home, for example, DTV is a bust. NBC is the only network my indoor antenna can receive. CBS, ABC, and PBS are dead air. Yet my antenna points toward the region’s largest hilltop broadcast tower, just 10 miles away. For years I’ve received analog TV that’s a little snowy but quite watchable.

The problem is that DTV signals are typical of digital media.