James Grimmelmann, GBS and Students: James Grimmelmann of NYLS on Orphan Works, Students for Free Culture Blog (part of a series on the implications of the Google Book Search settlement for students):
Ultimately, the biggest reason to worry about the Google Book Search settlement is its effects on the rule of law. The class-action lawsuit by which Google is attempting to gain these rights is a complex, temperamental affair that pushes at the limits of the law and benefits one company exclusively. A small group of small group of large publishers and a self-appointed cabal of authors claim to speak for all authors worldwide. And it will be enormously difficult for any other book-scanners to replicate the legal machinations that produced the settlement. All of these precedents are bad for the integrity of the legal system and for the bottom-up processes of creativity, negotiation, and exchange that characterize a vibrant culture.