And they lend them out. Which is considered fair use. Just like full-text search, now. As was said by a sibling comment to yours, people do this all the time

And they lend them out. Which is considered fair use. Just like full-text search, now. As was said by a sibling comment to yours, people do this all the time in bookstores too. Corollary: Google shows a snippet of text from a website under their link. If what I wanted to find out is contained in that snippet, I won't necessarily click the link. Same thing, but instead of a pointer to a website (which, in this example, just lost a pageview), it's a pointer to an book that you can purchase. More funnels to conversion mean more books purchased.