In September 2005, the Authors Guild had sued Google! Yep, the Guild took on Google because the Internet God struck deals with major university libraries to scan and copy millions of books in their collections. While some bolder books were in the public domain, millions of others were still under copyright protection.

According to past president of the Guild, Nick Taylor, “Google’s scanning is a plain and brazen violation of copyright law.”

And in response to Google’s explanation, which was that digitizing of these books represents a “fair use” of the material, new Guild prez, Roy Blount Jr. responded, “The hell you say!”

“Of such disagreements, lawsuits are made.”

The Authors Guild proposed this back in May 2006:

“While we don’t approve of your unauthorized scanning of our books and displaying snippets for profit, if you’re willing to do something far more ambitious and useful, and you’re willing to cut authors in for their fair share, then it would be our pleasure to work with you.”

Well, after back and forth chitter-chatter, Roy Blount Jr. reports, “Our proposal found a receptive audience at Google and at Association of American Publishers and the several publishing houses that had filed a separate lawsuit in October 2005 against Google. Reaching final agreement turned out to be not so simple, but today, after nearly two and a half years of negotiations, we’re joining with Google and the AAP and those publishers to announce the settlement of Authors Guild v. Google.

“The settlement, which must be approved by a federal judge before it takes effect, includes money for now and the prospect of money for later. There’ll be at least $45 million for authors and publishers whose in-copyright books and other copyrighted texts have been scanned without permission.”

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