Most if not all of those other licensed resources also probably charge for the license upfront to use their resources. Google is giving libraries FREE and COMPLETE access and FREE and COMPLETE access to library patrons to read the items in their collection.

“Thanks to Section 108 of the Copyright Act, libraries are not responsible for royalties that may be required as a product of patron copying.”

Part of that exemption assumes that royalties were paid when a library buys the items that are part of their collection.

I think the difference here is that when accessing items in the Google collection there is no prior purchase of the title. If a user of the service wants to make a copy of the work are they not then acting as a “publisher”? In the normal marketplace publishers pay authors for the material they print and sell to the public – be it an individual or an institution such as a library.

If this rather simple approach is not fair what do the opponents suggest as a mechanism to compensate rightholders of works still in copyright? Should the rights holders of orphaned works even be compensated? Should we just ignore copyright law altogether in this circumstance?

As far as the privacy concerns there likely would not be any. If libraries are required to pay the fee they could simply add the royalty rate to the price they normally charge. No need to make things complicated here.

Does the settlement explcitly state/require that library patrons that make copies of a Google Book identify themselves when payment is to be made?