News.com: “The Universal Digital Library, a book-scanning project backed by several major libraries across the globe, has completed the digitization of 1.5 million books and on Tuesday made them free and publically available. The online library offers full text downloads of works that are in the public domain, or for which the copyright holder has been given permission to make available. Having the backing of prominent institutions such as the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt, however, the collection goes far beyond the widely available classics, though those are there, too…” According to the director of intellectual property for the Universal Digital Library, Michael Shamos, “But once books are digitized and stored on servers around the world, it becomes impossible for any one government to destroy all the copies of a book. Once it’s there it remains immortal.”