I agree Johnny... and if this is the ruling, I believe the Authors Guild and assoc. should return that settlement money... but we'll never see that happen.
I'm on the fence about this. On one hand yeah, I do want to see books that have been out of print forever ago, and the copyright holder doesn't care to bring it back. On the other hand, who's to say the copyright holder won't bring it back. This happened to one of my favorite books: "Maya the Bee" I found a hard copy from 1964 by luck. If I hadn't found it, too bad, I would not have had the opportunity to read it for X amount of years. However this last year a publisher bought the rights and started print again. Perhaps instead of an opt out program, they should have an opt-in program, maybe with an incentive for copywrite holders to opt in.