Google Book Settlement: What About The Data?

If you've heard about the Google Book Settlement but don't really know what it's all about, here's what's going on:

• Google scanned millions of books, to create a digital library 
• Google didn't get permission from the copyright holders of the books
• Authors and publishers sued Google for copyright infringement
• The lawsuit was (is) a class action -- so the authors and publishers essentially represent ALL authors/publishers whose copyrights Google may have infringed
• Instead of fighting it out in court, the parties came up with a Settlement Agreement (and then when too many people hated it, they came up with an Amended Settlement Agreement)
• If individual authors/publishers did not want to be included in the settlement (which would preserve their rights to sue Google individually, and would [theoretically] prevent Google from exploiting their books in the future), they had to OPT OUT 
• The way to opt out was to fill out a form on Google's website
• The Amended Settlement Agreement ("ASA") had to be approved by the court
• Last week the court rejected the ASA, for a multitude of reasons
• So now the lawsuit is back to square one. Either they start fighting about whether Google did or did not commit copyright infringement on a massive scale; or they come up with a new settlement agreement that the court might actually approve. Either way, there's not likely to be final resolution anytime soon.

But Google might already have won.

Thousands of authors and publishers chose to opt out. I happen to be one of them. In doing so, we provided Google with information about our identities and the literary works in which we claim copyright interests. That information was supposed to be turned over to a central Book Registry that would be formed as part of the settlement. But if there's no settlement, there's no Book Registry.

And Google's sitting on a delicious database of information.