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Harvard-Google Online Book Deal at Risk

Harvard University Library will not take part in Google’s book scanning project for in-copyright works after finding the terms of its landmark $125 million settlement regarding copyrighted materials unsatisfactory, University officials said yesterday.

Harvard had been one of five academic libraries—along with Stanford, Oxford, Michigan, and the New York Public Library—to partner with Google when the book scanning initiative was announced in October 2004. University officials said that Harvard would continue its policy of only allowing Google to scan books whose copyrights have expired.

Google’s initiative has drawn fire because the Internet search company plans to digitize books that are still in copyright. The Association of American Publishers, the trade group that brought the lawsuit and that represents more than 300 publishing houses, has alleged that Google’s initiative amounted to copyright infringement on a massive scale.

Read entire article at Harvard Crimson