Google Library Project Settlement Agreement

On 28 October 2008, the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers and Google announced that they had reached a potentially groundbreaking Settlement dealing with Google's much-publicised 'Library Project', which involved Google digitizing publications without permission from the rights holders. Although the Settlement only covers the US, it will, if adopted by the US courts, have a significant impact upon all UK authors and publishers who have a US copyright interest.

Background

In 2004, Google announced that it had entered into agreements with several US libraries to digitize books and written materials held in those libraries' collections. To date, Google is reported to have already digitized more than seven million books, including millions of books that are still in copyright in the United States. American Google users are able to search Google's digital database and view "snippets" from the digitised materials.