Google to adopt millions of orphan books, put them to work

Let's pretend Susan Author wrote a book about chess cheaters, "The Bad Check," in 1973. You need it to finish your thesis. However, the book is out of print, still under copyright, and it will take weeks to get your hands on a copy. Your problem could be worth millions to Google, if the courts agrees with its settlement with the Author's Guild and the Association of American Publishers.

Google recently agreed to pay $125 million to settle the lawsuit brought by the guild and others which claimed that Google's Book project violated copyrights by scanning out-of-print books that are still under copyright and making them available over the internet. The books at the heart of the controversy are those for which there is no clear rights holder, called "orphan books." For example, perhaps Susan Author is no long among us, her heirs untraceable, and the publisher is out of business. In this case, "The Bad Check" would be an orphan book.