Since I deal with many people who don't live in the United States, I've long realized that many books which are freely available on Google Books are not available outside our land of the free books. (In theory any pre-1923 book which Google has scanned ought to be available according to American copyright laws. Since Mickey Mouse was invented in 1928, Disney makes sure that the copyright status of works created after 1923 are much more stringent.)
However, Google errs on the side of caution and countless books which you can download in America cannot be downloaded in Israel or Europe or Canada. But this is not in conforming with their copyright laws. They're just not available, and probably never will. Worse, I have found that many outside the U.S. do not even realize this. I was thinking, what if there was some location where people outside the United States can ask if such-and-such book, which they cannot download in their country, were available on Google? Then an altruistic American could help them. Hm.
