Google, book publishers settle long-running copyright case

Google and a trade group representing U.S. book publishers today announced they have settled a copyright dispute that has dragged on for 7 years.

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) and Google said in a joint statement that as a result, the Google Library Project will receive access to publishers' copyrighted books.

Both parties also said that U.S. publishers can "choose to make available or choose to remove their books and journals digitized by Google for its Library Project."

In the statement, AAP and Google said: "Apart from the settlement, U.S. publishers can continue to make individual agreements with Google for use of their other digitally-scanned works."

This settlement doesn't affect the litigation between the Authors Guild and Google.

In October 2005, AAP filed a lawsuit after Google announced plans to scan and digitize "the world's books. Google said then it would begin scanning all or segments of of the book collections of major universities and libraries, including the University of Michigan, Harvard University, Stanford University, the New York Public Library and Oxford University.

Google said it would give the public instantaneous access to a vast storehouse of knowledge, but it also said it... [Read more]