is this the beginning of the end?

>   http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2009/10/hp_amazon_team_on_rare_book_reprints.html?ana=from_rss

hewlett-packard is teaming with amazon.com
to turn the scansets of the public-domain books
from the university of michigan into paperbacks.

hp will clean up the scansets, and print them, and
amazon will sell those puppies, and split the cash
with hp and u.m.

it's ironic, because most of the u.m. scansets were
done by google...  and now amazon will sell them...

i am assuming that hp won't just print the scans,
but will actually clean up the o.c.r. and print that.

if i'm right about that...

then, relevant to the point here on this listserve,
is this observation: if hp cleans up all the scansets,
and prints them nicely to an inexpensive paperback,
why should anyone here bother doing a digitization?

instead, just buy the paperback, and scan that thing.
with clean pages and clear digital printing, the o.c.r.
will likely be near-perfect, so clean-up would be easy.

now, of course, if hp is merely going to print the scans,
then we'd be back in the same boat.  but -- otherwise --
is this the beginning of the end?

-bowerbird