The Big Deal

As someone who writes about the rapidly changing issues around digital libraries, I may be feeling some regrets about discussing some of the Google-related lawsuits in the Virtualpolitik book without being able to discuss the resolution of the cases once the text is at the final proof stages. The Wall Street Journal has shrunk the latest legal agreement down to "Google Deal Opens Web to Millions of Books," but the fine print of the settlement may have ramifications for other kinds of distributed media replication that features copyrighted content as well. For example, The Law Blog thinks that the $125 million dollar pay-out to "settle claims from authors and publishers for its earlier digital-scanning, cover legal fees and establish a Book Rights Registry to oversee the agreement" could also indicate that overtures to Viacom from Google-owned YouTube may also eventually be in the works. Siva Vaidhyanathan his written up his "initial take" on the settlement as well.