The Googlization of Everything

GBS is not a bookstore

... Please. Give me a break. Google Book Search, libraries, Amazon, and brick and mortar booksellers are not mutually substitutable vendors in the marketplace. FAIL.

The question of the suits was not about obtaining access to books -- specifically their physical manifestations. It was about the taking of the right to digitize the class of books in question, and the preparation of a searchable index against them that provided users the ability to perform discovery and view snippets of potentially in-copyright information. The suit was not about a better way to buy books, or even a better way to search to see if particular books existed.

The "product" that GBS offers - licensed access to books held in the cloud -- is quite distinct from the products offered by traditional online and offline book retailers, including traditional ebook products, which are downloadable aggregations of content that are usually device dependent. Additionally, although Amazon has significant pricing leverage across several sectors of the publishing industry, there are signficant markets, such as Canada, where it faces consequential competition (in this case, from Indigo).

I personally find Google's response, as represented, disingenuous and intellectually vapid. Common sense informs us differently.