Well, my grandfather had a rare book business from 1925 until 1948. I recently came across his catalogs in the course of cleaning out his house, while browsing for the same books on Google, and a couple of thoughts struck me.

Now, he charged for his catalog, and from the correspondence I came across, he searched for books for his clients. He did not get the copyright holders permission, and the copyright holders would have been crazy to withhold it, because he built market for the books.

Now Google books does take this a bit further, by allowing you to browse inside the book for a bit (not read the whole thing of course) and I think that:

1. We need to look for appropriate metaphors for the behavior that is occurring on the web, and not get to hung up with the fact that, in order to browse through books on the web, I have to 'fix' the pages in my computers memory. I have to fix a books contents in my mind when I browse in a bookstore anyway (I know that legally there is a big difference, but my contention here is the law in this area is somewhat too concerned with the instrumentality of how things happen on the web and often does not understand the technology correctly anyway) and is too little concerned with market effect and historical precedents for very similar behavior.

2. Google has created a market, and others would like to cash in on Google's efforts and their contacts. It seems to me that, despite the spin the content industry is trying to put on this, it is actually the content industry that's trying to become the parasite here.