News
Google ends US publisher row
28.10.08 | Graeme Neill
Google has agreed to provisionally pay $125m (£80m) to settle a long-running legal dispute between it and US publishers over its book scanning programme.
According to a statement released today, the settlement, which is subject to court approval, will expand online access to millions of in-copyright books, and other documents, in the United States from the collections of participating libraries.
Google Book Search allows users to browse millions of books online and, in the case of out-of-copyright titles, read an extract or the entire text. The settlement agreement resolves two suits filed in the United States just over three years ago. One involved the Authors’ Guild and the other involved McGraw-Hill, Pearson, John Wiley and Simon & Schuster. The lawsuits objected to Google’s plans to digitise, search and display extracts of in-copyright books and share digital copies with libraries without explicit permission of the copyright holder.
Under the terms of the provisional settlement, users will be able to search and preview millions of additional titles, including out-of-print books, online. Users will also be able to buy titles online via the Book Search site. US academic institutions will also be able to subscribe to the online collections of libraries from around the world, and students will be able to access millions of out-of-print titles from designated computers in public and university libraries.
As well as resolving the existing claims by authors and publishers and paying legal fees, a portion of the $125m potential settlement will also help establish the Books Rights Registry. This independent, not-for-profit organisation will pay the rights holders earnings from institutional subscriptions, book sales, advertising revenue and other potential revenue streams. The registry will also be the method for authors to request inclusion or exclusion from the Google Book Search programme.
Richard Sarnoff, chairman of the Association of American Publishers, described the settlement as "historic". "From our perspective, the agreement creates an innovative framework for the use of copyrighted material in a rapidly digitising world, serves readers by enabling broader access to a huge trove of hard-to-find books, and benefits the publishing community by establishing an attractive commercial model that offers both control and choice to the rights-holder."
Sergey Brin, co-founder and president of technology at Google, said: "While this agreement is a real win-win for all of us, the real victors are all the readers. The tremendous wealth of knowledge that lies within the books of the world will now be at their fingertips."
