Authors had until Friday 4 Sept to opt out of the controversial Google Books settlement. The settlement includes a payout by Google of $125 million in return for scanning millions of books that are in copyright, allowing people to buy the books and print unlimited pages for a fee, offer subscriptions to universities and libraries and give publishers and authors control over access to their works. Institutions considering digitising and sharing of published works at their institution are reminded to address any copyright concerns before proceeding with digitisation. Further details on this news story can be accessed at:
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/09/04/google-books-settlement-amazon.html.
(06/09/09)