In "Google Book Settlement, Orphan Works, and Foreign Works," Peter Hirtle discusses the impact of the Google Book Settlement on foreign copyright holders.
Here's an excerpt:
The scope of the foreign land grab could be considerable. Some initial estimates suggest that 7 million books could be included in the settlement. Of these it is estimated that 1 million are in the public domain. That would leave 6 million in-copyright but out-of-print books. Early efforts to try to understand the nature of the library collections that were being used to build the Google books database suggested that 50% of the works in the libraries were not in English, so it would be safe to say that at least 3 million of the books in the settlement will be foreign works. (Since Google added many European partners after this study was done, the number is likely to be much higher.) Some of these are going to be orphan works—but many more are going to have easily locatable rights holders that have chosen not to be active participants in the settlement. Their royalties are destined for the pockets of the Registry. I am willing to bet that a goodly percentage of the operating expenses of the Registry will come not from orphan works, but rather from foreign authors who do not understand the need to participate in the settlement.
