Hugene - 5:20 pm on Apr 8, 2009 (gmt 0)

The article is not extremely clear, the main problem seem to be :

While the registry’s agreement with Google is not exclusive, the registry will be allowed to license to others only the books whose authors and publishers have explicitly authorized it. Since no such authorization is possible for orphan works, only Google would have access to them, so only Google could assemble a truly comprehensive book database.

Now, I am a bit surprised by this conclusion. IMHO if a book is orphan, everyone should have unlimited access to them, regardless of the fact that there is no body to grant an authorization for these books, and most importantly regardless of the fact that Google spent money digitizing these books.

It is Google's problem that they digitized these books and it cost them money, but the process of digitizing does not grant them any extra right over these books.

If I photocopy a non-copyrighted book and sell it, I believe I am allowed by the law to do that. And anyone else is allowed to do the same, even photocopy my photocopy of the book and sell it. No?