Sports 14 Football opens
season at home
Science 16 Science and
ethics wrestle
with stem cells

Jetd J & Monday, August 15, 2005
Summer Weekly

One-hundred- ourteen ears o editorial reedom
www.michigandaily.com Ann ArborMichigan m Vol. CXV, No. 138 02005 The Michigan Daily


Google's digital library project put on hold
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Stung by a pub- to do our best to respect their views too." Michigan and Stanford. door to unauthorized duplication and distribu-
lishing industry backlash, Google Inc. has Google wants publishers to tell the compa- The company also is scanning books stored tion, similar to the rampant online pirating that
halted its efforts to scan copyrighted books ny, which copyrighted books they do not want at the New York Public Library and Oxford has decimated the sales in the music industry.
from some of the nation's largest university scanned, effectively requiring the industry to University, but those two libraries so far are Publishers are also upset that Google might
libraries so the material can be indexed in its opt out of the program instead of opting in. providing Google only with "public domain" be able to generate more advertising revenue
eading Internet search engine. That approach rankled the Association of works - material no longer protected by by offering an index of copyrighted books and
The company announced the suspension, American Publishers. copyrights. so far has not offered to pay any royalties for
effective until November, in a notice posted "Google's announcement does nothing to Google has not disclosed how many books its potential financial gains.
on its website just before midnight Thursday relieve the publishing industry's concerns," it has scanned since it first announced the pro- Mountain View, Calif.-based Google ranks
by Adam Smith, the manager of its ambitious said Patricia Schroeder, the trade group's gram eight months ago. among the Internet's most profitable companies,
rogram to convert millions of books into a president, in a statement Friday. "Google's The company expects to be scanning books having earned $712 million on revenue of $2.6
.igital format. procedure shifts the responsibility for pre- for at least five years - and probably much billion during the first half of this year.
"We think most publishers and authors will venting infringement to the copyright owner longer if it can persuade other libraries around Google executives have positioned the scan-
choose to participate in the publisher program rather than the user, turning every principle of the world to participate. sing project as a largely altruistic endeavor that
in order (to) introduce their work to countless copyright law on its ear." The project troubles publishers because they will make it easier for people around the world to
readers around the world," Smith wrote. "But Google wants to scan copyright-protected fear making digital versions of copyrighted read the valuable - and often rare - material
we know that not everyone agrees, and we want books from three major libraries - Harvard, books available on the Internet could open the See GOOGLE, Page 3

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DANCING IN THE RAIN

Voters petitioning to
increase K-16 funding

SIf initiative passes, it wOuld
make annual inceases for
school fuending mandatory
By Anne VanderMey
For the Daily
The K-16 Coalition, a lobbyist group for
education, will begin petitioning for signa-
tures in support of their proposal that asks for
yearly state funding increases for education
from kindergarten through the undergradu-
ate years of college in Michigan.
The proposed funding is expected to
cost the state between $50 and $100 mil-
lion. The funding would either rise with
the rate of inflation, or increase by 5 per-
cent annually, depending on which method
is cheaper for the state.
Tom White, director of the K-16 Coali-
tion, explained that tax cuts in 1990 made
it impossible for the state to live up to the
promises it made when voters approved Pro-
posal A to change local school funding from
a property-tax based system to one drawn
out of the state's School Aid Fund.
"We don't think it's kept the promise, and
it certainly hasn't kept pace with our expens-
es." White said. He added that schools have
suffered $450 million in cuts over the last
three years.
But schools are not the only state-funded
institutions that have come upon hard times.
The state's General Fund, which finances
not only higher education but health care
and emergency services as well, will be
tapped if the proposal is passed.
Rich Studley, senior vice president of
the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and
one of the most outspoken voices against
mandatory K-16 funding increases, said
the signature petition is likely to see spir-
ited opposition.
Studley said the state is already dedicat-
ing about a quarter of its total resources, to

education, and that using a petition would
bypass the Legislature, which traditionally
dictates which state institution needs the
most funds.
"It's a selfish and one-sided proposal,
other than that we think it's a good idea."
Studley said.
Frequent criticism of the proposal focuses
on the absence of a guarantee that the qual-
ity of education will increase as funding
increases, as well as no guidelines about
how the money will be spent.
Some say that a model should be imple-
mented that rewards academic progress, but
Rep. Hoon-Yung Hopgood (D-Wayne) who
has sponsored previous education bills said
mandatory K-16 increases are risky.
Hopgood said that there is uncertainty
about the accuracy of tests that measure aca-
demic caliber.
University spokeswoman Julie Peterson
said the University is hopeful that the K-16
proposal would be a solution to rising tuition
rates, believing that because the state needs a
predictable and robust model for funding if it
wants to sustain quality higher education.
The K-16 coalition is composed of 26
different organizations, one of which is the
President's Council of State Universities of
Michigan, of which University President
Mary Sue Coleman is a member. Mike Bou-
lus, head of thePresident's Council, said that
the council had been involved in the original
drafting of the petition.
"You can't succeed without higher education
... (we have to) take our future into our own
hands." Boulus said.
Boulus said the proposal may result in
higher taxes.
The petitions themselves were not delivered
on time, according to Ken MacGregor, spokes-
person for the K-16 Coalition. They should have
come in earlier but will now arrive on Monday,
he said. MacGregor added that he received hun-
dreds of e-mails asking where they were and
how people could get them.

Members of the Michigan Tango Club danced as a light rain fell onto their makeshift dance floor located
outside of the Regents Plaza, near the Michigan Union on Saturday, August 13, 2005.