http://www.authorsguild.org/news/amazon_launches_full.htm The Authors Guild (what, no apostrophe?) doesn’t like Amazon’s full text search.
“Whether your works should be in the program is hard to say. This program will likely prove to be useful in promoting certain titles. Midlist and backlist books that are receiving little attention, for example, may benefit from additional exposure in searches. For other titles, the program may erode sales. Most reference books would be at clear risk in such a database. So would many (if not most) travel books and cookbooks. Most fiction titles are not likely to be greatly threatened.”
(The Guild’s argument that, with effort, you can read most of the book without paying for it needs to be refined: this is true of books as well, which can be borrowed, photocopied, transcribed, thumbed through in bookshops, and so on.)
This might be a case in which the public’s interests are aligned with those of publishers and retailers, but not with those of the author. (c.f. digital music, where the prevailing opinion seems to be that the interests of the public and musicians (and possibly retailers) are aligned, and in opposition to those of the publisher.)
(The Authors Guild has previously urged members to not link to Amazon because Amazon sold second hand books; a subsequent clarification maintained that they have nothing in principle against the selling of second-hand books, only with systems that make buying them really easy to do…) 12:48
