Google agrees to pay $125 million to resolve lawsuits filed against its Book Search initiative

Google has signed an agreement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers that would resolve a class-action lawsuit filed against Google’s Book Search initiative in 2005 by book authors and the Authors Guild, as well as a separate lawsuit filed by five large publishers as representatives of the AAP’s membership.

According to Google, the agreement promises to benefit readers and researchers, and enhance the ability of authors and publishers to distribute their content in digital form, by significantly expanding online access to works through Google Book Search, an ambitious effort to make millions of books searchable via the Web.

The agreement also acknowledges the rights and interests of copyright owners, provides an efficient means for them to control how their intellectual property is accessed online and enables them to receive compensation for online access to their works.

Under the agreement, Google will make payments of $125 million which will be used to establish Book Rights Registry to resolve existing claims by authors and publishers and to cover legal fees. The Book Rights Registry will be managed by authors and publishers and will work to locate and represent copyright holders. The Registry will also be responsible for distributing the money Google collects to authors and publishers.

“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” Sergey Brin, co-founder and president of technology at Google, has said. “While this agreement is a real win-win for all of us (authors, publishers and libraries), 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.”