-The Huffington Post, August 10, 2009 by Pamela Samuelson
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pamela-samuelson/the-audacity-of-the-googl_b_255490.html
Why did Google decide to settle instead of to fight? Inspired perhaps by Rahm Emanuel, who has observed “you never want a serious crisis go to waste,” Google recognized that AAP and the Guild would be willing to settle their lawsuits by vastly expanding the plaintiff class to all persons with a U.S. copyright interest in one or more books. The settlement could then give Google a license to commercialize all books owned by the class.
-Library Journal, August 11, 2009 by Norman Oder
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6675916.html
Samuelson contends that Google, which had a good case that its scanning was fair use, chose to settle with the plaintiffs, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the Authors Guild (AG), because it could then get access to the universe of books. And the APP and AG would be willing to settle because they’d get a privileged position as representatives of the larger classes.