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What Google's doing in this case is consistent with workings of many sites on the Net - I'm mostly familiar with image holding sites like photobucket, imageshack, and countless others - they allow the users to upload all images, then remove those which has been reported as copyrighted. Google is just most visible of such sites here.
(this not just about Google and boooks) I don't have an opinion on legality of it, I merely say that it's a beneficial model from the viewpoint of the public domain. It allows for the works that are abandoned by their authors to wind up in public domain, where they should be, before the last copy of them is gone, and assures that the work that needs to be done to maintain copyright of the works is done by the party most interested in doing the job well.
I believe that if Google could make the process of making sure the copyright of the work is held by the party contacting them instantaneous, they would. As I don't believe the copyright period (as long as it is now) is the best option, I welcome Google's initiative as natural workaround for it, active in cases where no one wants to move a finger.
I hope the publicity provided by CJ Cherryh's blog and other articles generated additional sales that outweigh the losses that really occurred as a result of Google showing the books for a period of time in their entirety, and the loss of time spent of putting together copyright claims, and that future sales caused by the presence of those books on Google will be higher than they would be if authors waited years before putting the books on some accessible site.
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