In case you have not seen it yet, here’s James Gleick’s OP-ED in the NYT, discussing the settlement between Google and book authors and publishers. The interesting point he makes is that the new business model should increase the quality of published books.
If the books remain available online virtually for an unlimited period of time (or until Google shuts down its servers, which seems unlikely at the moment), it will be able to sell access packages at any point from publication onwards. This way Google could split revenues with rightholders over a very long time span, effectively until the last paying reader. Publishers will no longer be under pressure to promote and release primarily blockbusters, which must bring in a certain minimum income within a relatively short time window, and then are doomed to go out of print. Gleick proposes that remodeling the business of publishing will in fact help books recapture old glamor. They will regain their romantic aura as fine works of authorship, as something "beautiful". Time will tell whether this prediction materializes or not. In any case, the process is inevitable and unstoppable. One important question is whether it can ultimately improve public access opportunities to knowledge. I think the answer will partly depend on developing the matching regulative framework. We cannot rely solely on markets and contracts to do the job.