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Anyone here know who A. A. Milne is? You might recognize his name as the author of the "Winnie the Pooh" books. But you might not know that he was also a prolific and very popular playwright during his lifetime. And not a single one of his plays is still available now. They were protected by copyright law, even after they had fallen out of print, until eventually there were no printed copies left to scan.
I expect to see a challenge to the deadline, and possibly to the "non-orphan works" part of the settlement, but really, if a publisher can't be bothered to keep a book in print (even digitally), and the author doesn't exercise their clause to reclaim rights AND get the book back into print, why not let Google have a go?
Even if this settlement is eventually overturned, if it prompts more writers and publishers to get their books back into digital "print" so Google can't snag them, I'd say that outcome will be worthwhile. Before Google started scanning books, most publishers seemed completely indifferent to the idea of getting their backlists into digital form.
Despite what Disney seems to think, the idea of copyright was to help the public by encouraging creators with a limited-time monopoly, not to allow publishers to sit on content and trickle it out so they can charge the highest possible price for it. I really can't see how that behavior is in the public interest.
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