take that google critics

A large percentage of the things people search for inside google scanned books are inside books which publishers no longer publish. Not really cutting into publishers sales then is it? In fact Tim O'Reilly suggests that it might help publishers identify which books to bring back into print thus making them more money not less.

Long Tail evidence from Safari and Google Book Search:

Last fall, I came to the defense of Google against lawsuits by the Author's Guild and Association of American Publishers, arguing that Google Book Search would help readers to rediscover works that were no longer commercially available. I pointed out, in fact, that only about 4% of all titles ever published are still being commercially exploited. (Kevin Kelly wrote a long report on the current state of book scanning initiatives in yesterday's New York Times Magazine.)