From Ars Technica
here:
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The coalition of authors suing to stop Google Book Search scored a key victory on Thursday as the judge overseeing the case ruled that three individual authors and the Author's Guild could represent the class of all authors whose works had been scanned by Google. Google had sought the opposite result, arguing that including all authors in a single lawsuit would make the case too complex, and that most authors actually supported the scanning project.
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And later in the article:
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The ruling is an important victory for the authors because it would have been financially difficult for the three individual authors to carry the lawsuit forward on an individual basis. Thursday's ruling means that plaintiffs' lawyers will be more interested in taking the case in expectation of hefty damages if the authors win. The plaintiffs will also be able to rely on the resources of the Author's Guild to cover their legal costs. So now the case can move forward to consider the merits of Google's fair use arguments.
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Generally, I think this book scanning project is good for Google, good for authors and good for society. The idea of having a huge chunk of works easily searchable is good for researchers, and good for authors who may be able to pick up a few more sales that way. Plus it's great for preserving works that would have been lost otherwise.
According to the Google Books' blog: "Copyright law is supposed to ensure that authors and publishers have an incentive to create new work, not stop people from finding out that the work exists. By helping people find books, we believe we can increase the incentive to publish them. After all, if a book isn't discovered, it won't be bought."