How is Google Books legal?

A friend showed me Google Books, where you can read books on line for free.  

How is this legal?  Books are copyrighted.  I don't know anything about the specifics of copyright but how can Google scan all the pages of a copyrighted book and then make the pages available under their own banner?

For example, the complete text of the 2009 Prix Goncourt winning novel "The Kindly Ones" (Les Bienveillantes) by Jonathan Littell is available here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=VphKmPlIBPAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+kindly+ones+google+books&hl=en&sa=X&ei=bNBaU_LqN9GzsATPs4CACQ&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=the%20kindly%20ones%20google%20books&f=false

Can someone please shed some light on this?

Google has so much money that they can hire supreme Martian lawyers

It's kinda weird, because we're just going to google the answer and give it to you. Why do you refuse to use google on the simple stuff, sure google's not good for everyhitng.

Because I trust you, my friend.  The force is strong in you, brah.

As far as I can see pages 44-283 aren't shown.

A lot of the books that are complete are because of expired copyright.

Good point.  My friend also showed me a "trick" to access the hidden pages via searching another way, or something.  

Now...even if 44-283 were omitted, that still leaves 1-43 and 283-900 as readable right?  That's still hundreds of copyrighted pages.

Presumably the authors/publishers allow it because they think it would lead to increased sales. I wouldn't read part of a novel.

                  I get downloadale pages from New In Chess. Its an enticement to get you to buy the book. There's a case before the Supreme Court now involving Aereo. It records shows for you to watch later. The TV industry is up in arms regarding copyright infringement.

Do you know how much your own personal data worth? It's basically the same as how e-mail systems are free to use, they simply allow themselves to do whatever they want with any of your personal data (used for advertising as they claim), that's the price you pay.
How does the saying goes? "When a service is free, the buyer becomes the product."

Google just pays to publisher, lol

Why do they still allow Bit Torrent? You'd be surprised at the books you can get off Bit Torrent, not to mention movies, tv shows and what not!

Because technically it's still sharing and therefore only the uploader can be legally punished, and even then it's difficult to get a grip on this whole thing. How do you punish a modern day pirate? If you get one, shouldn't you get all? Just how many people download anything? And how should they be punished?
There are even add-ons on browsers that let you download videos and movies from the internet for free in a simple screen capturing method, or converters that use a website's URL to download its content, and they're just there, built in your browser, supported by the big companies behind the browsers, waiting for you to use them. Isn't that technically pirating, then?
Or punish only the big ones that are distributing? How about those that are simply too poor to buy a AAA game (which are ridiculously expensive in some countries compared to the average salary)? Or how about TV shows that aren't aired somewhere? Or are these stuff really just incredibly expensive and people don't like the fact that an e-book, which is definitely and obviously cheaper in every possible way to make than a normal book, is almost the same price?
It's a really long debate, seriously.

Huh.  I was under the impression that a $25-35 hardcover new could be purchased for $2-3 in "eBook" format.  Is that wrong?  (I've never even as much as held an e-Book thingy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Book_Search_Settlement_Agreement

Thank you very much for finding that, sir.  Would you mind summarising the contents of that article for me?  Thanks.

Google can do whatever it wants.

That's mainly about where you live and how much the publisher wants to make of that country. I'm from Hungary, and let's say a book that's about 25$ in a store brand new, is surprisingly enough 19$ on e-book.
Sure, deal is great at first sight, but it's not something to drop your jaw considering they've basically cut all their expenses of not making an actual book and still asking for the 75% of the original's price.
Same for the games, for example, a newly came out game costs 1/8th of the average salary here, thanks to international shipping and the trader's own profit and who knows what else.

As socialist as I am I still know (not merely "believe") that authors, publishers, and printers deserve just compensation for their work. 

We've discussed this in Off Topic before. He lacks the initiative to look things up for himself and wants us to do all the work for him... Kinda like that one kid in school that always wants to cheat off of your tests instead of studying.

Riiight... relax, kid.  You can think you are an armchair expert on any topic you want, son, as long as you have your internet connection and your "google" bot or whatever.

By the way, I could tell you were a hardcore right wing John Birch type by your myopic and hostile attitude toward intellectualism -- but you totally confirmed it with your ranting and raving about your small arms collection.

[Comment removed by mod- Please watch the personal attacks. Thank you!]