Publishers Thank Google for Book Sales

eldavojohn writes "A few book publishers are actually thanking Google for an apparent rise in sales due to Google's scan plan. Google is busy defending itself against authors and publishers that have brought lawsuits for ignoring copyrights. The director of the Oxford University Press said, 'Google Book Search has helped us turn searchers into consumers.' It seems to work in favor of the smaller publishers: 'Walter de Gruyter/Mouton-De Gruyter, a German publisher, said its encyclopedia of fairy tales has been viewed 471 times since appearing in the program, with 44 percent of them clicking on the 'buy this book' Google link.' Do you think that Google's 'sneak peak' search access increases sales or violates copyrights on intellectual property?"

Comments

TFP poses a false dichotomy

[Money for Nothin']

Do you think that Google's 'sneak peak' search access increases sales or violates copyrights on intellectual property?

Why must these two points be separate? Is it possible for the search access to both increase sales *and* violate copyright?

After all, that's one of the big questions (if not the biggest) surrounding the RIAA's battles against music file trading...

And here I thought

[grasshoppa]

I thought we were operating from the assumption that programs like this did both.