Also, Google promised that it would price its outofprint books so that theyre in line with a competitive market, and repeated an older pledge to allow book retailers to sell online access.

But heres what Peter Brantley, cochair of the Open Book Alliance, had to say in a statement emailed to WebProNews. Our initial review of the new proposal tells us that Google and its partners are performing a sleight of hand fundamentally, this settlement remains a setpiece designed to serve the private commercial interests of Google and its partners.Brantley later continued, By performing surgical nip and tuck, Google, the Association of American Publishers, and the Authors Guild are attempting to distract people from their continued efforts to establish a monopoly over digital content access and distribution usurp Congresss role in setting copyright policy lock writers into their unsought registry, stripping them of their individual contract rights put library budgets and patron privacy at risk and establish a dangerous precedent by abusing the class action process.Jessica E. Vascellaro and Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg reported that the Department of Justice is unhappy, too.This promises to stay interesting, then, or at least get interesting again following a lull. The next hearing on the matter should be held sometime early next year.