Remember, this settlement only legally applies to Google.

That’s why the things you highlighted in the agreement about the limitations on the Registry acting with parties other than Google: “to the extent permitted by law, license Rightsholders’ U.S. copyrights to third parties.” “subject to the express approval of the Rightsholders of the Books involved in such other commercial arrangements”

So being in the class and agreeing to the settlement won’t give the Registry the legal ability to license to anyone other than Google without your permission. They won’t have the legal authority to do that without an opt-out, and may not even have the legal authority to do it on “opt out” rather than an “opt in” basis.

You also bring up a very good point about the extent that the Book Rights Registry extends beyond the settlement with Google. Paragraph 6.2(b) of the Settlement Agreement (page 65) says (with emphasis added):

The Registry will be organized on a basis that allows the Registry, among other things, to (i) represent the interests of Rightsholders in connection with this Settlement Agreement, (ii) respond in a timely manner to requests by Google, Fully Participating Libraries and Cooperating Libraries, and (iii) to the extent permitted by law, license Rightsholders’ U.S. copyrights to third parties.

The Notice of Class Action Settlement (the distilled summary of the Settlement Agreement) is even more explicit about the possibility that the work of the Registry will extend beyond Google. This quote comes from paragraph 8(B) on page 11 (with emphasis added):

The Registry will represent the interests of the Rightsholders, both in connection with the Settlement as well as in other commercial arrangements, including with companies other than Google (subject to the express approval of the Rightsholders of the Books involved in such other commercial arrangements).

I’m guessing the Registry, once it is established under the court’s authority for rightsholders as defined in the settlement, can act as an agency for the rightsholders to enter into contracts with other entities on behalf of the authors/publishers that remain in the class. As Lawrence Lessig points out, some contracts can supersede copyright law. Can the contract between the Registry, on behalf of the authors/publishers, and a new digital distribution option provide effectively the same thing as the “safe harbor” in the Settlement Agreement?

If you don’t want the Registry to act on your behalf in this way, the only way to make sure that doesn’t happen is to op-out of the class — even if you like everything else in the agreement. If you sign up for the class, it would seem that the board of directors of the Registry would be able to enter into such agreements on your behalf, and may not give the individual rightsholders a way to opt-out of subsequent agreements like it has for the Google settlement.

What would be very useful, at least in my mind, would be a comparison and contrast with other rightsholder conglomerates such as BMI and ASCAP.

But there is one odd thing here. It would be an ordinary class action settlement if it was just about _Google_. You can be in on this settlement with Google, or you can retain the right to sue Google independently later if you want. That’s how class action suits work. (Although since Google is promising to take down anyone’ stuff that asks them to, I’m not sure what you’d have to gain from an independent settlement, not joining in the class?)

The weird thing is the Book Rights Registry. Which reminds me, wait, while the Books Rights Registry is being _set up_ as as this kind of over-arching precedent setting thing (just look at the name), the only _legal_ standing it will have is with Google specifically. No other displayers-of-digital-text have agreed to use it. And even if they do, use of it doesn’t automatically grant ‘safe harbor’ status to anyone other than Google. it’s just part of the settlement between Google, and those publisher’s who are part of the class.

Of course, we can count on it being used as a precedent, it is intentionally being set up as a template, and we can count on the publisher’s organizations offering this same sort of deal (esp, use of Rights Registry == ‘safe harbor’) to lots of other people. Which is why it maybe SEEMS like such a big thing that how can this judge have the power to approve it? But legally, all he’s approving is a settlement between Google specifically and the class.

There is no _legal_ safe harbor provided by the Rights Registry, even if the judge approves it. It is merely a settlement between Google and the class who is included in the settlement.

It’s sort of an attempted end-run around congress’s failure to modernize actual copyright law for the digital world. Which, the copyright-owning-class would honestly rather they NOT do, that’s a can of worms they don’t want to open.