On October 28, more than three years of settlement talks between Google and groups representing book publishers and authors came to an end.  The dispute has been over Google’s proposed Library Project.

The History:
The following excerpt is from Google’s December 14, 2005 press release  regarding the Library Project:  “As part of its effort to make offline information searchable online, Google, Inc. today announced that it is working with the libraries of Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, and the University of Oxford as well as The New York Public Library to digitally scan books from their collections so that users worldwide can search them in Google.”  The press release further stated, “users searching with Google will see links in their search results page when there are books relevant to their query. Clicking on a title delivers a Google Print page where users can browse the full text of public domain works and brief excerpts and/or bibliographic data of copyrighted material. Library content will be displayed in keeping with copyright law.”

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