Google has settled its copyright dispute with the Author's Guild and Association of American Publishers for $US125 million. The settlement in the case - which challenged Google's Book Search program - will "establish an independent, non-profit Book Rights Registry, to resolve outstanding claims by authors and publishers and to cover legal fees from class-action lawsuits against Google." More crucially, it also sets the scene for the publishing industry to enter the 21st century, with royalties from digital viewing of books:
The agreement, which only applies to holders of US copyrights, allows users of Google Book Search to preview a limited number of pages of in copyright books for free if the rightsholder agrees. Consumers can choose to buy an entire book online at a price to be set by the rightsholder or a Google algorithm designed to "maximise revenues for the book".
The settlement sets up a system of institutional subscriptions to Google Book Search and provides free access to public libraries. Advertising will be carried on web pages displaying the books but not on the books themselves and rightsholders "will receive the majority of the revenue from the advertising on web pages for specific books". The settlement calls for revenue from subscriptions, consumer online purchases, advertising on web pages and per-page printing to be divided 63-37 between the rightsholder and Google.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin commented "While this agreement is a real win-win for all of us, the real victors are all the readers. The tremendous wealth of knowledge that lies within the books of the world will now be at their fingertips." Having used Google's Book Search extensively in my own research, for tracking down relevant books, I have to agree with his summation. Further comments from Brin can be found here