The Association of American Publishers and Google’s agreement last week to settle the publishers’ long-running litigation over Google’s library scanning program put an end to the lengthy and expensive suit, but without resolving any of the underlying issues. The main component of the deal—publishers with books scanned by Google under its library program can choose to “opt out” of the program—is something Google has always offered, while publishers were insisting on an opt-in option in 2005. And the question of copyright infringement and fair use was shoved to the side, as it was in the earlier settlement rejected by Judge Chin.
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