2. How is this any different than web search? Google indexes the contents of websites and displays a snippet of relevant content based on what you search. What makes book search different from a legal perspective?
3. I highly doubt that Google would have continued to pursue this course of action if it was as open-and-shut as the attorney you quoted seemed to think.
1) Was that there before the suit was initiated? It's possible everything the Authors' Guild (of which I'm a member) sent me is misleading, but they certainly indicated it was not possible for most authors to have their works removed. Regardless, there's the question of whether authors should have to opt out. Clearly you can't just start giving away Beatles records or songs or even clips of songs until Paul McCartney asks you nicely to stop. Why should it be any different for writing?
2) I don't know, but clearly uploading clips of The Daily Show is illegal, and Google most certainly can't get away with that. Hell, they might not even get away with hosting a service to which other people upload clips of The Daily Show. Books would seem to be more like that, since they are copyrighted works that aren't publicly available for free on the web already, and instead must be actively uploaded.
3) You're right, they wouldn't and that's why they didn't. They settled the first suit that came along and paid $125 million plus ongoing royalties because they realized they were going to lose.
1. You can opt-out, unless I'm misreading this: http://books.google.com/googlebooks/publisher_library.html#o...
2. How is this any different than web search? Google indexes the contents of websites and displays a snippet of relevant content based on what you search. What makes book search different from a legal perspective?
3. I highly doubt that Google would have continued to pursue this course of action if it was as open-and-shut as the attorney you quoted seemed to think.