Supreme Court Declines to Revive Challenge to Google Books

The Supreme Court did this by declining to hear the case, thus leaving the Appeals Court ruling in place. Article here. HT: FastCompany.

As both a publisher and an author, I approve of this decision, especially because I publish many relatively unknown authors. Sometimes it’s hard for me to convince authors that letting people see portions of their books doesn’t persuade people not to buy them. Without seeing some of the contents, very few people will by a book by an unknown.

I remember telling one author who was obsessive about the idea that someone might pirate his manuscript that he should be hoping for the good luck that someone wanted to pirate his manuscript. His problem, and that of many unknowns, was not that people were reading his book without paying him money, but that people didn’t even know his book existed.

So good job by the courts, I think.