Google and the Association of American Publishers (AAP) announced on October 4 that they have entered into a settlement agreement in a seven-year dispute over the search company’s Google Books Library project.  The project, which seeks to create a searchable digital archive of books from several major libraries around the world, has been the target of two copyright infringement lawsuits.  The settlement in the present case, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. v. Google Inc., No. 1:05-cv-08881 (S.D.N.Y), brought by five AAP members, allows publishers to choose whether to make their books and journals available to Google for digitization.  Other terms of the agreement remain confidential. 

A parallel class-action lawsuit, brought against Google by the Authors Guild on behalf of a class of “[a]ll persons residing in the United States who hold a copyright interest in one or more Books reproduced by Google as part of its Library project,” will continue.  As we reported last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently stayed proceedings in that case pending Google’s appeal of a class certification order granted on May 31 of this year.