Free for a Fee

The Center for Social Media at American University recently launched yet another in its amazing line of best practices guides, The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education. I have received notes from so many people asking me whether I’ve seen the guide, that I am very encouraged that it’s getting the widespread exposure it deserves. Of course I recommend to everyone reading this post that you have a look at it, even if you don’t teach media literacy. And, I’m very excited for the Center for Intellectual Property that its next virtual scholar will be Peter Jaszi, who had quite a hand in the development of this approach to expanding reliance on fair use.

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Publishers Weekly: “Google Settles with AAP, Authors Guild“:

Google has reached an out-of-court-settlement with the Authors Guild and the AAP involving two separate lawsuit brought by the organizations against Google’s Library Search program that made scans of books from libraries, including books under copyright. The settlement includes a 5 million payment by Google plus the establishment of a new licensing system.

Google announces a 5 million deal that settles a lawsuit with publishers that had sued it over its book search. Not only does it put the search feature in the clear, but it may see Google become a major retailer of out-of-print books.

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The landmark settlement between Google and a group of authors & publishers looks like a de-facto victory for Google and those of us with an interest in searchable books online. Other than putting themselves on the right side of history, what’s the upside for the publishers here?