With Google Settlement Rejected, Library Groups Keep Eye on Access

"What the vast majority of librarians hoped to see out of this lawsuit was a precedent-setting determination on the fair-use right to index and search copyrighted materials (recalling the scope of the initial complaint against Google). Barring that, most considered an acceptable consolation prize to be easy access to a full-text union archive of the nation's premier research collections, as the settlement would have provided. As of Tuesday, neither of those options are in the offing....The rejection of the far-reaching settlement has essentially stalled progress on the issue of access to orphan works, at least until Congress takes up the matter...."