The weekend review sections have brought more on the books in general and the Google Books Settlement in particular.

In the Financial Times, Tim Martin reviews four tomes about the history and future of the book. The only one the really appeals to me is the collection of essays by Robert Darnton, The Case for Books, Past, Present and Future.

Darnton isn't only a marvellous essayist, he also, as director of Harvard's library, suspended its agreement with Google in 2008. In his review, Martin writes of the current court case:

“If Google has its way, one of the world’s largest companies will end up
with unchallenged distribution rights over one of the world’s largest
book collections.”

Activism against Google on this front is continuing to develop. Campaigner Gillian Spraggs has written a note about this in the Guardian's Review section today. It isn't online, but the Guardian's article about the authors who opted out of the settlement is.

I'm one of the 6,500 or so who did. This was partly because I want to control myself how my books appear online, and doubt I'm missing much revenue from Google by doing so – this part of the proposed settlement is so opaque and complicated that it's hard to be sure, but anyway the amount would be smal for most authors. But for me the main issue is the private global monopoly the US court will give Google if it upholds the settlement. Here is another area where Google is leveraging its scale in its existing markets to gain dominance in a new market.

For those who are interested in the economic and legal issues, I comment The Public Domain by James Boyle as a sparklingly clear overview. Professor Suzanne Scotchmer at Berkeley has called for international action to safeguard the global public domain. Finally, a recent working paper by Professor Pamela Samuelson explores the economic aspects of authors' objections, particularly looking at academic authors' concerns.