Google co-founder Sergey Brin has hit out at critics of the company's plans to create what could be the world's largest virtual library.

谷歌共同创始人Sergey Brin对该公司计划建设世界上最大虚拟图书馆的批评进行反击。

Google's digital library plans have met with strong opposition¹.

Writing in the New York Times, Mr Brin said he wanted to "dispel²（驱散，驱逐） some myths" surrounding the project.

He said the plan would make millions of "out-of-print" books available to the public online.

Those against the idea fear it would give Google a monopoly（垄断，专利） over access to the world's information.

"In reality, nothing in this agreement precludes³（预先排除） any other company or organisation⁴ from pursuing their own similar effort," he wrote.

"The agreement limits consumer choice in out-of-print books about as much as it limits consumer choice in unicorns⁵.

"Today, if you want to access a typical out-of-print book, you have only one choice — fly to one of a handful of leading libraries in the country and hope to find it in the stacks."

'No deal'

Google Books - formerly⁶ known as Google print - was first launched in 2004.

It aims to scan millions of the world's books and make them available - and searchable - online.

However, in 2005 the Authors Guild⁷ of America and Association of American Publishers sued Google over "massive copyright infringement⁸（版权侵犯）".

Google countered that its project represented "fair use".

The search giant settled the lawsuit⁹ in 2008. In that deal, Google agreed to pay $125m (£76m) to create a Book Rights Registry, where authors and publishers could register works and receive compensation.

Authors and publishers would get 70% from the sale of these books with Google keeping the remaining 30%.

Google would also be given the right to digitise orphan¹⁰ works, titles where the authors cannot be found. There are thought to be around five million of these works.

A decision on whether the deal could go through was originally scheduled for early October.

But, after an outpouring（流出，流露） of criticism - from governments, technology companies, privacy advocates（提倡者，拥护者） and consumer watchdogs - as well as formal objections from the US Department of Justice, the presiding Judge sent the deal back to the drawing board.

"Many of us are objecting because we have been working together for years on the mass scanning of out-of-print books - and have worked to get books online for far longer than Google - and Google's 'settlement' could hurt our efforts," wrote Brewster Khale of the Internet Archive in a blog post earlier this week.

The Internet Archive has a competing project, which aims to offer a free digital library. It scans around 1000 books a day.

"A major part of our efforts have concentrated on changing the law so everyone would benefit."

On Wednesday, the judge said the hearing on the reworked settlement would begin on 9 November.