$125 Million Settlement In Authors Guild v. Google

James Gleick writes "Authors, publishers, and Google are announcing a huge settlement deal today in their lawsuits over the scanning of millions of copyrighted books in library collections. Google has agreed to a huge payout for books that were scanned without permission, but now they'll be allowed to scan the books legitimately. Most important, they'll be able to put millions of books online, including those still in copyright — not just for searching and not just in snippets. There is a groundbreaking new licensing system meant to make the books as widely available as possible while protecting the authors' copyrights and enabling them to share in the revenue. Some will differ, but personally I think this is a wonderful outcome, for readers and for authors alike."

Comments

Re:at last. its f*ckin 21st century ffs.

[east coast]

In all fairness to Christopher Tolkien, at least he had an active role in his father's estate and actually worked to produce some of the wealth. It's not like he sat on his hands and just let the checks roll in and any Tolkien fan should have a bit of admiration and offer up a little thanks for Christopher and his desire to see his father's work get to the masses. Without Christopher these works would either have been lost or found their way into a private collectors collection for a high price. He certainly didn't need to be as responsible as he is.

Re:I can has source material?

[ShadowRangerRIT]

When you steal a book, and keep it permanently without compensation, that makes you no better than the Plantation Masters. IMHO.

Wow. Hyperbole anyone? Last I checked we are not:

1. Whipping the authors
2. Raping the authors
3. Taking their children away
4. Denying them any personal rights

In case you weren't aware, you can dislike a particular viewpoint without making strained comparisons to slave holders (or any of the other favorites, e.g. Nazis).