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Authors Get $60 Per Book—And 63 Percent Of Ad Revenue—In Google Book Settlement

imageGoogle settled its longstanding Book Search lawsuit last October for $125 million, and now affected authors and publishers have begun submitting claims for compensation via a special site. Claimants are eligible for $60 per scanned book—and 63 percent of any revenue Google generates from ads running against copyrighted material. Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is required to notify affected authors, publishers and their heirs that they may be eligible for payment as part of the settlement; CNET reports that the company has published the notice in 218 countries and 72 languages.

As TechCrunch notes, it’s not that bad a deal as the books named in the suit were already out of print. And since Google has increasingly incorporated Book Search results into everyday searches, the ad share portion of the settlement should represent an ongoing revenue stream. The search giant has been digitizing books since 2005, and announced that it was adding magazines to the mix in December.

Photo Credit: Si1very

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Feb 11, 2009 11:14 PM ET
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Posted In: Advertising, Legal, Media & Publishing, Books, Search, Technologies / Formats, Companies, Google

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