Google and the World Brain

Google and the World Brain is a 2013 documentary movie about the Google Books Library Project directed by Ben Lewis, produced by BBC, Polar Star Films, and Arte. The main focus of the plot is on the copyright controversy caused by the project that resulted in the Google Book Search Settlement Agreement from Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google, Inc. in 2013.

Google and the World Brain
Film poster
Directed by	Ben Lewis
Produced by	Fiona O'Doherty Viva Van Loock Bettina Walter
Starring	Sergey Brin Dan Clancy Mary Sue Coleman Amit Singhal Brewster Kahle[1]
Cinematography	Frank-Peter Lehmann
Edited by	Simon Barker
Music by	Lucas Ariel Vallejos
Production companies	BBC Polar Star Films Arte
Release date	18 January 2013 (2013-01-18)
Running time	90 minutes
Countries	United Kingdom Spain Germany
Languages	English French German Spanish Catalan

The film features interviews with many figures concerned, including Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig, then-senior Vice President of Google Amit Singhal, and Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle.^[1] The use of World Brain in the title is taken from the H. G. Wells' collection of essays called World Brain.^[2]

The film premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.^[3]

Reception

In a positive review in The Hollywood Reporter stated that the documentary offered "convincing reasons to pay more attention to Google's utopian schemes." And the film raised a bigger question about artificial intelligence, "the more putting centuries' worth of books online becomes a project to create a near-omniscient artificial being," and if such a thing became a possibility could a single company or government be trusted to hold the reins.^[4]

See also

• The Virtual Revolution, 2010 BBC film about Internet in whole