Google has recently settled the lawsuit brought by Author’s Gild and the Association of American Publishers (AAP). The lawsuit was filed against Google’s plan of scanning millions of books to make them available online for readers. The books were to be collected from local libraries and various other sources. 

Authors and Publishers expressed their concern for in-copyright books and filed two lawsuits against Google Inc. After two years of negotiation, Google, Author’s Gild and AAP have come to a settlement – a ‘groundbreaking agreement’ if said in Google’s words. 

According to the agreement Google agrees to pay $125 million to set up Book Rights Registry to keep track of in-copyright books. The registry will help readers to find and buy copyrighted books. This will also help them search books which are out of print. 

In short, the agreement will help a lot of people; both copyright owners and readers will be benefited from it. Copyright owners can register their books with the Book Rights Registry and get compensation for subscriptions, sales and other revenues their work brings in. 

In this age of paper-less culture, such a move is always welcome. Log on to Google Book Search – millions of books are just a click away!