Google and copyright

A different aspect of copyright emerged when I read a posting from NZLibs listserv about Google and copyright. This posting lead me to an article from the New York Review of Books and a comment from Robert Darnton, the head librarian at Harvard. Google has been scanning books in American libraries with the aim of making them available on the Internet. Some of the works scanned were still under copyright and Google was sued by the copyright holders. Now people will have to pay for access to scanned, copyright works although Google says that public libraries will have one terminal for free access and that the cost will not put it out of the reach of schools. One terminal will not be enough for large libraries and there is also concern that, if the management of Google changes, costs to users may increase. Although Darnton believes in the principle of free information. Many comments made the point that his library is not freely available to all and others made the point that there is a cost to the scanning project and that people could always interloan the original book rather than pay Google for online access.
What surprised me was that many of the copyrighted books that were scanned were out-of-print so no-one could buy them even if they wanted to. Libraries pay a fee to the copyright holders of the books in the library. This is to compensate them for lost sales when a patron borrows a book rather than buying it. It doesn't seem quite fair that the copyright holders can receive money for an out-of-print book. I also think that the copyright period is far too long. People producing creative works should receive fair payment but I'm not so sure that their heirs should.