There’s been some talk on and even lawsuits against the google book search and whether their use of copyrighted books constitutes fair use or not.

I think that it does. I’m not going make an argument in this blog post. Lawrence Lessig makes one in this video if your interested.

Here is a hypothetical example which i think is comparable. There is a town, and in that town there are alot of sights to be seen by tourists. Some of them are free, but some them can only be enjoyed by paying a fee, such as AquariWorld, an amusement park.
I make my living by giving people tours around the town and telling them about the various sights, among those are AquariWorld. I show them some photos and tell them about the rides they can enjoy and the animals they have on display. You’ll note that I can’t give them the experience of actually being on the ride, but i can describe it to them and possibly they may want to take the ride.

I think intellectual property in the US is over-reaching and suggest authors, artists and other moderate people in this buisness reign in their laywers with some commons sense.