Jack Balkin, professor of law at Yale, believes the Authors Guild lawsuit against Google is just plain silly.
"Every author wishes that more people read his or her books. Most of us would happily stand on street corners with sandwich boards if we thought it would help. Anything that brings our work in front of a larger public should be welcomed as a good thing, not something to be feared. The Authors Guild, and indeed all authors, should be working with search engines like Google to come up with new and creative ways to get people to know about and sample what we have often spent many months-- and sometimes many years-- working on. Authors spend their lives putting the best part of themselves into their books. The cruelest fate they can suffer is not criticism and rejection-- it is being forgotten. The digitally networked environment gives them a chance to avoid that fate. All authors who care about their work should embrace it."
As someone working on his first book, I wholeheartedly agree.
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