Google and Publishers Settle Their Suit

Well this part of the suit against the Google Library Project is done. The American Association of Publishers (AAP) has settled with Google.

Google, as you may know, took on the ambitious project of digitizing libraries to make that content available online. The Google Books site provides book excerpts for free. Not unexpectedly, this project really bothered copyright owners, and the AAP, the Author’s Guild, photographers and visual artists and several individuals filed suit to stop the project in 2005.

Although the full terms of the AAP settlement are confidential, the settlement, importantly, allows publishers to opt in or out of Google Books, and thus in or out of the digitization project.

The AAP settlement still does not resolve the authors’ separate suits, which are still pending in the Southern District of New York, still presided over by Judge Chin (sitting by designation after his elevation to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals).