While some have expressed their doubts about the desirability of the terms of Google Books’s settlement with the Authors Guild, Ars Technica is carrying a commentary waxing enthusiastic about the ability to buy a copy of any out-of-print book Google has scanned.
Nate Anderson recounts the problems he had finding trying to track down a long out-of-print book for some research:
I spent some time once looking for a volume penned during the Second World War; it was one of the only contemporaneous English-language accounts of what it was like to live in the Nazi Protectorate (modern-day Czech Republic), but it proved impossible to find. At length, I tracked down a copy and secured it through interlibrary loan through an academic library, but as for buying a copy? Not possible.
He points out that, if that book happens to be one of those that Google scans, under the terms of the settlement he would be able to buy a complete copy of it from Google for display or print-on-demand.
He also notes that, though talk about the benefits of POD had been going on for years, nobody had ever addressed the question of where all the material to be printed on demand was going to come from—who was going to pay for scanning everything. It took Google to come along and “[solve] the problem by throwing money at it” for something to get done.
The terms of the settlement may not be perfect, but if it goes through it will at least solve a significant part of the “orphaned works” problem.
