Copyright Laws are supposed to promote dissemination of information and opinion

The New York Times has an article which states:

Opposition is mounting in Europe to a proposed class-action settlement giving Google the right to commercialize digital copies of millions of books.

The settlement would permit Americans to buy online access to millions of books by European authors whose works were scanned by Google at American libraries......

The German government, supported by national collection societies in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Spain, plans to argue against it and encourage writers to pull out of the agreement.

Comment: Surely governments should put the public benefits of free access to information ahead of the financial interests of a few publishing firms! JAD