The book and the Internet: One is old, staid and respected, the other’s young, sexy and rude. The new guy’s looking to knock the king down, and he’s looking good. Think Achilles vs. Agamemnon, Magic vs. Kareem, Happy vs. Shooter.

Suffer another analogy: Our adjustment to digital media has been like losing your virginity — fast, messy and painful. While legal issues surrounding music, movies and books have hardly been resolved, everyone’s pretty much in agreement now that the InterWeb is the image of the world.

Well, not really. But it’s getting damn close.

Take Google’s book digitization project, which aims to scan pretty much every work of literature in the world and reproduce it online. So far, they’ve ploughed through about 12 million volumes. Suck on that, Gutenberg.

Of course, bound volumes aren’t giving up without a fight. Earlier this week, a federal court in New York ordered that the infamous settlement between Google and the publishing industry be reworked. It was, shall we say, a bit ambitious on Google’s part.

The Internet behemoth is looking to provide previews of copyrighted books on its site and to reimburse authors whose works are out of print. Fine. More controversially, though, Google was claiming — and may after the recess, continue to claim — exclusive rights to the digitization of “orphan books,” so-called for their lack of any discernible rights-holder.

Looks like someone got a little greedy. Although Google is providing an invaluable service to the world, it can’t claim ownership over the (perhaps many) thousands of legally liberated volumes floating around the country’s libraries. Just because you baked the cake doesn’t mean you get to eat all the leftover frosting.

But if all goes well and the case proceeds as it has been — hundreds of briefs, including one from the Justice Department, have been filed against unfair clauses in the agreement, and the presiding judge seems inclined to grant some of the demands — we’re likely close to a relatively fair, nearly universal library. Get pumped.

Of course, there are many who argue that such assaults against physical books are a grave mistake. They say that the experience of reading a volume off your shelf is inherently different from reading off a screen, and that our powers of concentration and attention — not to mention our appreciation for the sanctity of the written word — will suffer irreparable damage. I think that’s largely right.

But this is about much more than our material experiences of reading. We’re experiencing a revolution in the history of scholarship and the arts. Forget Alexandria, Baghdad or the Library of Congress: This new online behemoth will be the vastest compendium of knowledge ever created.

Just the thought of it gets you all hot and bothered, doesn’t it?

If not, this will: As reported in The Sun on Sep. 14 (“Changing Textbook Industry Forces C.U. To Adjust”), serious efforts are underway to make textbooks free and available online, negating the need for exorbitantly priced, seldom used tomes. Few will mourn the slow death of the industry: For years, academic publishers have been padding their pockets with ill-won profits from college students. Margie Whiteleather, strategic products manager at The Cornell Store put it perfectly — if obliviously — in the aforementioned article: “The fact that [books on Amazon.com are cheaper] is largely a perception.”

Something tells me she’s not talking about Kantian metaphysics. I.e., it’s a perception, and a correct one. The Internet’s cheaper, faster and easier than any book. In the most practical terms, it’s an obvious benefit for our intellectual book.

One can’t deny the claims of the more traditionally inclined dissenters. Books are invaluable, and no person should forsake them for a laptop. The substitution of a digital database for our libraries would be folly — if for no other reason than for the sake of scholarly interaction.

But there’s a middle ground. Once Google relinquishes its claim to orphan books (and makes some other important guarantees, such as securing the rights of foreign authors), its database will be the most important place in the world of letters. By offering only previews of copyrighted works, it preserves the importance of the printed word.

Google, as it showed with its censorship shenanigans in China, is not always the most virtuous of companies. And there’s always danger in giving a small, self-interested group such power. But the opportunity for learning we’ve been provided is unprecedented, and the poets and scholars of the past are turning green with envy. Let’s not waste the opportunity.

Ted Hamilton, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, is one of the Sun’s Arts and Entertainment Editors. He may be reached at thamilton@cornellsun.com. Brain in a Vat appears alternate Wednesdays this semester.