Several major publishers, including Penguin Groups and McGraw-Hill, and Google announced this morning that they have reached an agreement in the Google Books copyright infringement case.
The private settlement brings a close to the case for publishers, though the claims of the Author’s Guild have yet to be resolved. Filed almost seven years ago when Google began work with seven major university libraries to scan their collections and make digitized versions available to the public, the case’s previous settlement of $125 million fell through. The full ramifications of the agreement have yet to be revealed, but the press release did indicate that the publishers involved now have the option to include their works in the project or demand their removal.
The class-action lawsuits filed by the Authors Guild and The American Society of Media Photography are still being heard in the U.S. District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan.
