Google continues to poke publishers with a sharp stick, most recently in a reported attempt to get a book-rental system off the ground. the interesting aspect to this is Google's proposed pricing and the reaction of an unnamed publisher. Google is apparently suggesting 10 percent of a book's list price as a per-title access fee to consumers, who would be able to read the book on a computer screen for one week, with downloading and printing disabled. Publishers have never really gotten it that virtual copies of books should be a hell of a lot cheaper than printed copies. The WSJ reports that the unnmed publisher was unsatisfied with the price. It's worth remembering that music subscription services offer access to over a million tracks for less than the cost of a single CD per month. the variable is that people use books quite differently from how they use music; once a book is read once its value is cut way down, whereas a music product can be enjoyed repeatedly for years.

At any rate, Google certainly has books on the brain these days.