Professor Tim Wu has posted a great analysis of the fight between authors and Google Print. Rather than plowing the familiar fair use debate, Tim asks the right question - what will this mean for authors and the public?
Consider what it would mean, by analogy, if map-makers needed the permission of landowners to create maps. As a property owner, your point would be clear: How can you put my property on your map without my permission? Map-makers, we might say, are clearly exploiting property owners, for profit, when they publish an atlas. And as an individual property owner, you might want more control over how your property appears on a map, and whether it appears at all, as well as the right to demand payment. But the law would be stupid to give property owners that right.