Saturday, November 01, 2008

Google book search - settlement in legal dispute

Settlement Reached in Lawsuit Over Google Book Search - Google and groups

representing authors and publishers announced a major settlement yesterday in the class action lawsuit over Google's creation of a search engine for books. The settlement, which still requires court approval, should pave the way for Google to offer expanded ability to find and review books in the home, library, and university contexts. Authors and publishers should benefit from new revenue opportunities. The settlement offers a good example of how copyright and technology interests can work together to create new business models and exciting capabilities for users, though it also means that legal questions about the fair use status of indexing and search will not get resolved in this case.

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