Authors, Publishers, and Google Reach Landmark Settlement on Online Book Publishing

Holding:

Internet search giant Google, Inc. has announced that on October 28, 2008, it reached a groundbreaking settlement agreement with The Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers (AAP). The settlement 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. As part of the settlement, Google will pay $125 million to settle two lawsuits over its book-scanning project, one a class-action lawsuit brought by book authors and the Authors Guild, and the other brought by five large publishers as representatives of the AAP’s membership. The agreement, reached after two years of negotiations, will make millions of books searchable and printable online according to Google's press statement. The settlement is subject to approval by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Detailed Summary:

The instant lawsuit and the related case of McGraw-Hill Cos. v Google Inc., No. 05cv8881 were filed in response to Google’s highly publicized Google Library Project. In 2004, Google announced that it had entered into agreements with several university and other libraries to digitize books and other writings contained in those libraries. Google has already digitized over seven million books, including books that are in copyright, and has created a searchable books database that shows users “snippets,” meaning several lines of text, from the books. See Memorandum of Law in Support of Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Settlement Approval.

On September 20,…

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