Consider this remark, for example: “Nothing in this agreement precludes any other company or organization from pursuing their own similar effort.” Thanks to quirks in civil litigation and class-action law, Google has lucked into being able to negotiate royalties with every single author and copyright holder on the planet. No one else will be remotely able to do the same thing. Before they can scan any book printed after 1923, they’ll have to find the copyright holder and ask nicely. Characterizing this as just a walk in the park can’t be seen as anyone other than a deliberate attempt to sucker the public into letting Google have a monopoly on millions of digitally archived books.
