Settlement with publishers revives Google’s book service

Google has reached a settlement with the US publishing industry. The deal gives Google the right to publish copyrighted books that are out of print online.

If the American court agrees with the settlement, the three-year legal battle between Google on the one hand and the American Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers on the other will come to an end.

The most important part of the agreement is that Google will have the right to make copies of copyrighted books that are no longer in print available in their entirety through the book service. Individual users will be able to access the content of these books for an amount yet to be determined, effectively turning Google into its own publisher. According to Google’s legal adviser David Drummond go it’s about the ‘majority of books out there’.

American libraries are given unlimited access to the relevant database, while other large organizations such as universities have to take out a subscription to be able to request copyrighted work. The copyrighted books that are still being published can be made accessible by publishers themselves, as before, through Google’s Partner Program of the book search service.

The advantage for the publishers is that they receive a share of the income and thus generate turnover with books to which they own the rights, but which they no longer print themselves. Google has also promised to invest $125 million in setting up a Book Rights Registry. The purpose of this program is to find out who owns the rights to out-of-print books so that that party can be compensated.