The Association of American Publishers and Google have announceda settlement in their dispute over Google’s mass scanning of books. Publishers will be given an opt-out if they don’t want their works in Google’s database.
Because they are settling only the claims between each other, the court will not have to approve the settlement.
Now, the question is, what will the Authors Guild, the other major plaintiff in the case do? They have been seeking class action status to represent the interests of all authors. Without the publishers’ participation, I don’t know whether the authors have enough resources to continue fighting Google.