After seven years of litigation, Google and the Association of American Publishers announced a settlement yesterday which will allow publishers to choose whether Google digitizes their copyrighted but out-of-print publications. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but settlement language dictates that 20% of content from books that Google has already digitized will be readable online with the entire book available for purchase from Google Play, and Google will share revenue with book publishers.
This settlement does not resolve the litigation between Google and authors, however – the Author’s Guild published a press release yesterday, confirming that the “authors’ class action continues.” Nor does the settlement answer the question of whether Google is infringing copyright by digitizing books, which is really the main issue in the litigation.
You can read more about the litigation on the Association of Research Libraries website, which offers a four-part series on the Google Library Project: Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.
