Amazon book search raises author concern
3 November 2003
A book search facility recently introduced by Amazon.com has been halted following the raising of concerns from authors and publishers.
The 'Search Inside the Book' service allowed users to search whole texts for particular phrases, making it easier to target specific books in less time.
In collaboration with publishers, Amazon digitised more than 120,000 books, some 33 million pages of searchable text. The feature drove a nine per cent sales increase, Amazon reported last week.
However, the service may have proven somewhat too successful, with reports of some users using it to print dozens of consecutive pages of text.
Since the launch of the facility 190 publishers have participated, with 37 having contacted Amazon to participate.
The Authors Guild has suggested that Authors should wait for a more developed service before allowing their work on to the system:
'We believe that most authors should sit tight and see what further technical improvements Amazon makes before deciding whether to pull their books from the program,' said the Guild in a statement, according to the Register.
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