Must I buy a bookcase full for that one page relevant to my research?
... or spend days in book shops looking for the right book, while the owners grumble and tut-tut behind my back?
Pretty poor arguments from the Publishers:
* Not making useful information available in searches will actually disadvantage the UK - there is no other way to scan and manage our huge and important industrial knowlege base.
* Content aggregators are perfectly able to provide searched-for content in the correct context - usually in the context of the inputted search criteria!
* Reasearchers are clever enough that they don't need mumsy guidance to the information from the publishers
Publishers need to accept that all information will eventually be aggregated through search engines. If theirs is not there, they will simply be ignored unless they want to been seen as keepers of exotic, ancient and unspoken knowlege, akin to the secrets of the pyramids. They must move on from their (literally!) medieval revenue model and reinvent themselves, much as the music has now reluctantly been forced to do.