In "Google Book Search Settlement: A Publisher's Viewpoint," Tim Barton and Barbara Cohen of Oxford University Press discuss the Google Book Search Settlement with Mary Minow.
Here's an excerpt:
[Barton] Finally, it is also worth considering what happens if the settlement fails. The settlement offers us a vision of a world where all Americans have access—for free—via c. 20,000 public libraries and higher education institutions—to millions of works which are not now available. They would also have substantial free access to those same titles from every (online) computer in the country. Consumers could also purchase these titles (for what I believe will be a reasonable price), and institutions can subscribe to them (again for what I believe will be a reasonable price). The alternative is access to snippets, at most.
The availability of a book used to be determined either by whether a publisher could justify a print run, or by access to the specialized collections of a relatively small number of libraries. Printing technology and cost structures meant that books were put out of print long before their useful lives were over. We now live in a time when technology and the different commercial dynamics around internet search have combined to give us an unprecedented opportunity to make available again the ideas and work of millions of such books written by generations of scholars and writers. Why wouldn't we grasp that opportunity?