In bullet #2 are you talking about the copying for the purposes of providing snippets (the basis of the two lawsuits) or for the so-called non-display uses that Google is getting a license to as part of the Settlement? Not that it matters especially, but the non-display uses were not the basis for the lawsuit, in part because the case is weaker (by which I mean the fair use case was stronger) but also because Google was originally pretty coy about the many non-display uses they had in mind. Strange that it now turns out that those might end up being one of the most important aspects of the Settlement (although at this point there's no way the Settlement is getting approved as is).

And for as broken as copyright law is, I think Google's fair use argument under the current doctrine was pretty strong here. And I was really hoping they'd stick around to fight on that angle. That being said, the only reason they had the luxury of making that argument is b/c they have endless amounts of money to defend against a lawsuit and keep plugging away in court for years to protect an activity that maybe you think should be presumptively legal.

Bullet #2 also reminded me of a case you may have heard of. There's not a whole lot of post-DMCA law on the liability of search engines for caching copyrighted material, but the case that comes to mind immediately is Field v. Google (412 F.Supp.2d 1106), which granted Google's motion for summary judgment and held Google fell within the DMCA safe harbor & was making fair use of the guy's stuff in any event. Essentially there were 4 or 5 independent justifications for considering Google's caching legal behavior.

Anyways, I'm looking forward to reading and commenting on your upcoming series.