Deal to expand online access to copywrited materials
Posted by Jacque on October 28th, 2008
A teleconference today will discuss a settlement agreement (PDF) between Google, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers on behalf of a broad class of copyright holders.
The deal would expand online access to millions of in-copyright books and other written materials in the U.S. from the collections of a number of major U.S. libraries participating in Google Book Search, notes TechCrunch. The settlement is still subject to approval by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The Guild had sued Google in September 2005, after Google struck deals with major university libraries to scan and copy millions of books in their collections.
Google says that once the settlement has been approved, “you’ll be able to purchase full online access to millions of books. This means you can read an entire book from any Internet-connected computer, simply by logging in to your Book Search account, and it will remain on your electronic bookshelf, so you can come back and access it whenever you want in the future.” Many of the books are otherwise out-of-print.
