Google Wants To Give You Some Money

I posted here back in November about the settlement that had been reached between Google and representatives of the 'print industry'. I find this to be totally amazing: essentially in this deal, which still requires in-court approval, we are witnessing, as if it was being played out for us in a play, the final crisis of the take over of print media by digital media. Now all we will have left is the end-game, the tidying up of loose-ends, the denouement.
See the New York Times here for the most recent news. Google is making a monumental attempt (ironically using large-scale printed advertisements [its a bit like slapping someone with their own hand, no?]) to contact all copyright holders. Why? To give them some money.
Google, as part of its mission to organize all of the world's information, is intending to scan everything that was ever published in print-media. So if you've ever published anything, they want to give you some money, both a) right off the bat for the right to scan, and b) every time someone pays them to read it.
Of course, the really big thing we should be aware of here is: if print media has fallen, both absorbed by and also made obsolete by the digital, what's next? What exactly is going on here?
Go to the article for more information.