Abstract: Although the Google Books Settlement has been criticized as anticompetitive,
I conclude that this critique is mistaken. For out-of-copyright books, the settlement
procompetitively expands output by clarifying which books are in the public domain
and making them digitally available for free. For claimed in-copyright books, the
settlement procompetitively expands output by clarifying who holds their rights,
making them digitally searchable, allowing individual digital display and sales at
competitive prices each rightsholder can set, and creating a new subscription product
that provides digital access to a near-universal library at free or competitive rates.
For unclaimed in-copyright books, the settlement procompetitively expands output by
helping to identify rightsholders and making their books saleable at competitive rates
when they cannot be found. The settlement does not raise rival barriers to offering
any of these books, but to the contrary lowers them. The output expansion is
particularly dramatic for commercially unavailable books, which by definition would
otherwise have no new output.