Online Writers Guild

Late Fri­day Google filed the newest ver­sion of a set­tle­ment that now restricts the ways Google can make money from scan­ning and dig­i­tiz­ing out-of-print books. It only applies only to works from English-speaking coun­tries, and requires the reg­istry to seek out copy­right hold­ers who do not come forward.

While the finan­cial terms of the set­tle­ment have not changed, sev­eral points have and those are avail­able in the Sup­ple­men­tal Notice. If you were a class mem­ber under the Orig­i­nal Set­tle­ment, but are not a class mem­ber under the Amended Set­tle­ment, you should visit the part­ner options at the Google Book Search site  in order to learn about Google’s cur­rent poli­cies with respect to the removal of your works from its databases.

The New Pro­posed Time­line For Authors:

The dead­line to claim Books and Inserts for Cash Pay­ments has been extended from Jan­u­ary 5, 2010 to March 31, 2011. The Removal dead­line as to Google has been extended from April 5, 2011 to March 9, 2012.

Things To Remem­ber About The Case

The set­tle­ment offer is still under judi­cial review and until com­plete the mat­ter is still unresolved.

For now The Court will out­line a time-line that usu­ally includes a notice period, an objec­tion period, and a Final Fair­ness hear­ing most likely tak­ing place in early 2010.