ICOMP

The proposed Google Book Search Settlement has been generating increasing interest and concern on both sides of the Atlantic.

The background to the proposed Settlement is a US class action lawsuit brought against Google Books by the US Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers and a number of individual authors and publishers for breach of copyright. The action challenged the wholesale practice of Google scanning and uploading copyrighted works into its database without seeking consent of the authors and publishers concerned. The proposed Settlement was negotiated by the litigating parties but would also have a significant impact on the rights many thousands of publishers and authors who are not directly involved in the case, including European authors and publishers.
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I doubt that there will be a person reading this blog post who is not in favour of ensuring wider access to the world’s literature and scientific learning. The digitisation of out-of-print books has tremendous potential to help achieve this task and to do so in ways unimaginable to many of the authors and publishers whose works are now in the public domain.
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