Google just announced that it will allow third-party retailers—including Amazon and Barnes & Noble—to sell copies of the out-of-print books included in the Google Books Settlement.

A major point of contention against the settlement has been that it would give Google an effective monopoly on the millions of out-of-print books it scanned in as part of its Library Project, which are covered by the settlement.

Google has long held that there's a circular logic to that argument: Opponents say Google will get the monopoly because performing a similar scanning project would be too expensive for any other party. To which Google has answered: Then clearly any de facto monopoly we might gain is not an economically beneficial, because if there were profit to be made off out-of-print books, others would be diving in as well.

But it looks like Google is now bowing to pressure from critics in an attempt to salvage the settlement which is poised to be approved or rejected by a federal district judge in New York, possibly as early as next month.

More, including today's statement by Google Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond, after the jump.

Today's announcement also seems in line with Google's larger goal of becoming the world's preeminent provider of digital books, including new in-print books, which are not part of the Settlement.

In July, Google Books engineering director Dan Clancy outlined Google's vision for its digital books future, which involved a product called Google Editions, a mechanism for selling e-books via any retailer (Google itself, other online retailers, as well as brick-and-mortar stores).

That vision, which seems embodied in today's statement, involves Google "hosting" copies of e-books on their servers. Purchasers would then simply access their purchases via their personal devices, rather than actually download the works to the devices themselves.

Today, Drummond said in a statement released by the company:

"We believe strongly in an open and competitive market for digital books. As part of that commitment, today we announced that for the out-of-print books being made available through the Google Books settlement, we will let any book retailer sell access to those books. Google will host the digital books online, and retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore will be able to sell access to users on any Internet-connected device they choose. Retailers can also pursue their own digitization efforts of out-of-print books in parallel."

The company also today repeated its belief that the actual market for out-of-print books is only about 2 or 3 percent of the entire market for digital books and that the future of the digital books market is in new and in print books.

The announcement leaves open a number of questions, including how sales or advertising proceeds will be divided between Google, third parties, and rights holders (the settlement spells out a 30/70 split between Google and rights holders). Also not clear is whether the settlement even provides for third-party sales. We've put these questions to Google and will update as we receive more information.