That's only possible to do if you're the copyright holder. What Google would have been doing would have been specifically for orphan works, meaning no known cop

That's only possible to do if you're the copyright holder. What Google would have been doing would have been specifically for orphan works, meaning no known copyright holder was able to be found. (as for public domain works, in America[0] you can't claim copyright on them again unless you significantly transform them into a derivative work. It doesn't stop museums from claiming copyright on public domain paintings regardless though...) Besides, I'm not sure Creative Commons would have helped—since I'm assuming you're referring to non-commercial—because the settlement depended on Google being able to pay anyone claiming the books, pay the publishers, and sell the books to recoup/profit. Just merely making the books free online would enrage the publishers class who would feel that they are losing possible profits. [0]: For countries that follow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow doctrine they might actually be able to but that defeats the purpose of wanting to make public domain works freely available