No, you're absolutely right. Absolutely anybody else who wanted to could compete by:
* Openly commiting a massive infringement (note that non-massive infringement would not be sufficient)
* Being sued by the Author's Guild
* Having that suit granted a class action status
* Having a large enough legal team you can fight the class action lawyers
* Convincing the class action lawyers that they should settle into a business deal instead of cashing out
* Ensuring that this deal is sweeter for the lawyers than Google's or they'll just keep monopoly rents through Google
Yep. There's no exclusive rights here at all.