Authors, publishers settle copyright suit against Google
Consumers may soon be able to search, preview and buy millions of hard-to-find books, thanks to a deal announced Tuesday between Google and major copyright holders.
The deal, which settles a three-year-old lawsuit, allows Google to scan in and make available any out-of-print book that still has a valid copyright. It can offer subscriptions to universities to its database of such books, sell online access to individual tomes and eventually let consumers print books on demand.
"Readers are … big winners under the settlement," said Roy Blount Jr., president of the Author’s Guild, which had sued Google.
Their dispute, which also involved book publishers, focused on Google’s book search program launched in late 2004. It scanned in books from the libraries of such universities as Harvard, Stanford and the University of Michigan to make those libraries more easily searchable for the general public, even displaying snippets of books in response to queries.
