Copyright is to do with protecting reproduction of works, no? What google has done here is scanning the book and indexed the content, presumably so it makes it easier for users to search books for relevant material. Assuming they don't reproduce large sections of copyrighted works in their search results I don't feel like they're doing anything wrong here.
>>remus+(OP)
> Assuming they don't reproduce large sections of copyrighted works
They do (or did). They showed the text around the search term, around a page or so, which made it possible to reconstruct the whole book without that much effort.