[rlauzon]

The Author's Guild arguments just don't ring true, but they do have a familiar ring to them. It took me a while to figure out, but I heard the same basic argument from the RIAA.

Then it struck me. The Author's Guild isn't about the authors. The arguments have nothing to do with piracy, copyright, etc. All that is a smoke screen for the real issues: control and relevancy.

Today, publishers (and other groups of non-authors who add no value to a published work) have a large measure of control over who gets published how and when. But they have to be responsive to the reading public. Google Print will remove that control. The reading public will demand books that the publishers don't want published (or don't have plans to publish).

The reading public will also see how many works by dead authors aren't in the Public Domain and start asking why.

As technology moves forward with things like printing a book on demand and on to eBooks, groups like publishers and the Author's Guild become irrelevant - they offer no value. So they have a vested interest in slowing down any technological innovation that threatens to speed up their (much needed, IHMO) demise.

Imagine a world where an author writes a book via a word processor, sends it to the book clearing house so that Google can index it - where a person can find (and peruse a bit) a book via the web, then head down to the local bookshop where with a swipe of his credit card, get that book printed on demand - or downloaded to his PDA.

What does an author need a Guild or a publisher for in such a world?