Google: The Only Thing You Have to Fear Is Fear Itself

In a new op-ed in Friday’s New York Times, Google co-founder and tech president Sergey Brin attempts to allay fears about the recent settlement between Google, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers—the result a lawsuit brought against Google by the industry groups over Google Books. Bryn writes that despite claims to the contrary, the settlement is not a “form of compulsory license” because “rights holders can at any time set pricing and access rights for their works or withdraw them from Google Books altogether.” Nor will the book-search service “limit consumer choice with respect to out-of-print books,” since consumers looking for “a typical out-of-print book... have only one choice—fly to one of a handful of leading libraries... and hope to find it in the stacks.”