Tuesday 28 October 2008

Authors Guild and Google reach settlement

On October 28, 2008 the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers and Google announced the landmark settlement of Authors Guild v. Google. The Authors Guild has created a webpage with documents and links including the Settlement Agreement, the official Settlement Website and Roy Blount's Message to Authors Guild Members (he is Presidient of the Authors Guild).
Google will pay $125 million to settle lawsuits that challenged its plan to digitize, search and show snippets of in-copyright books without the explicit consent of the copyright owner. If approved, the agreement will expand online access to millions of in-copyright books from the collections of libraries participating in Google's project. Google's payment will be partially used to establish a program under which holders of U.S. copyrights can register their works and receive compensation from institutional subscriptions, book sales and ad revenues.

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