Google settles dispute over online books
Mark Sweney writing in guardian.co.uk,
Tuesday October 28 2008

Google has reached a landmark agreement with authors and publishers to make millions of books available online, in a deal that includes a $125m (£80m) payout and the end to lawsuits filed by companies including Penguin.

The agreement, part of which is subject to the approval of the US District Court in New York, comes after two years of negotiations between the parties and will mark the end of two lawsuits against the Google Book Search tool.

Today's agreement settles a class action lawsuit filed by the Authors Guild in September 2005 challenging Google's plans to digitise, search and show snippets of in-copyright books and to share digital copies with libraries without explicit permission.

A month later five major members of the Association of American Publishers – McGraw-Hill, Pearson Education, Penguin, Simon & Schuster and John Wiley – filed a separate suit on similar grounds.
The deal today, described in a joint statement by all parties as "groundbreaking", will see online access granted for millions of in-copyright materials "and other written materials" in the US through Google Book Search.

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