[Standard "I am not a Lawyer" disclaimer applies.]
The Google Books thing is overly complicated (which will tend to happen when too many lawyers get together), but as best I understand it, the reason that the settlement was reached between Google and the Authors Guild (and the Association of American Publishers) is that Google stood a decent chance of having the court rule in favor of their contention that their scanning books and making pieces of them available on the web was within the bounds of fair use (see some discussion of the legal theories involved here: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2005/09/authors-guild-sues-google (http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2005/09/authors-guild-sues-google)). Such a ruling would apparently have resulted in Google not needing to pay a thin dime to copyright holders, so the AG and AAP decided it was better to get some money and avoid a legal precedent rather than roll the dice on having the judge decide.
I, personally, still think the part where authors who aren't members of the AG somehow still get sucked into the settlement is ridiculous, but since they are, you might be best served by taking your agent's advice (especially since she is an agent with such a fine reputation). Even if you don't opt out of the settlement, you can still, as I understand it, exclude your books from being displayed by Google (see the FAQ answer here: http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/help/bin/answer.py?answer=118704&hl=en#q26 (http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/help/bin/answer.py?answer=118704&hl=en#q26)), so you may want to look into that option.
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Date: 2009-04-16 02:32 am (UTC)The Google Books thing is overly complicated (which will tend to happen when too many lawyers get together), but as best I understand it, the reason that the settlement was reached between Google and the Authors Guild (and the Association of American Publishers) is that Google stood a decent chance of having the court rule in favor of their contention that their scanning books and making pieces of them available on the web was within the bounds of fair use (see some discussion of the legal theories involved here: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2005/09/authors-guild-sues-google (http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2005/09/authors-guild-sues-google)). Such a ruling would apparently have resulted in Google not needing to pay a thin dime to copyright holders, so the AG and AAP decided it was better to get some money and avoid a legal precedent rather than roll the dice on having the judge decide.
I, personally, still think the part where authors who aren't members of the AG somehow still get sucked into the settlement is ridiculous, but since they are, you might be best served by taking your agent's advice (especially since she is an agent with such a fine reputation). Even if you don't opt out of the settlement, you can still, as I understand it, exclude your books from being displayed by Google (see the FAQ answer here: http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/help/bin/answer.py?answer=118704&hl=en#q26 (http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/help/bin/answer.py?answer=118704&hl=en#q26)), so you may want to look into that option.