Google has to pay for Book Search

Thu 30 October 2008 10:27, Editors

Google has to pay about 125 million dollars to settle lawsuits against Google Book Search, the service scans entire books and makes them searchable. This was published by Reuters earlier this week.

The American branch Authors Guild (writers) and the Association of American Publishers were not pleased when Google began scanning books, without consent of the copyright holders, more than two years ago.

Google explained that only parts of the books are displayed to the user. The full versions are only stored on Google's servers and not publicly accessible. So, the search giant was of the opinion that it was not obliged to pay. For about two years there were plenty of discussions in the courtroom with the following outcome: Google should pay. It has to pay 125 million dollars over the past two years to the copyright holders.

Furthermore, a business model is developed to make writers, publishers and the search giant benefit from this service. The quest for the content of books is separated into two parts. The individual consumer can always find parts of books based on keywords. Then they can buy the entire title online. In addition, institutions such as schools and universities subscribe to the service. Then they get full digital access to millions of scanned books.

"It's been a long and arduous negotiation," said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild, which considers that the scheme is "the biggest book publishing deal in U.S. history". "The settlement will mean a solid repository of books - millions upon millions of out-of-print books and many in-print books - will find a new home and new readers online."

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Google is about to take over the...>

Comments (1)

- Klaas
Mooi model toch?

Vr 31 okt 2008, 15:01

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