One aspect of the Google Books Settlement that concerns me is: what about authors (and publishers) of new books? For example, my book, Scholarly Communication for Librarians, was published in 2009, just months after the date covered by the Google Books Settlement.
This means if Google Books goes ahead, authors who published just a few months before me will have a tremendous advantage in terms of exposure, unless they have opted out.
Also, while copyrighted books must be limited in terms of geographic exposure, what about the growing trend towards open access monographs, which I expect to take off in the very near future with the anticipated release of Open Monographs Press? Already, I have a book chapter in a forthcoming book on Free Knowledge edited by Daryl Hepting. Since this book will be OA, there will be no need to limit access; it should be available to anyone, anywhere. If the Google Books service includes a convenient print-on-demand option, I want in! Royalties, even small ones, would be nice, but if Google makes some money on this service, this is well deserved, in my opinion.
