It’s taken all of seven years and plenty of time in court, but Google and a group of publishers have finally reached an out-of-court settlement to resolve a dispute over the digitization of books for the Google Library Project. What does that mean? Hopefully that longer samples of books will be available in Google Play before consumers have to decide whether or not to buy it.

The publishers — McGraw-Hill, Pearson Education and Penguin, John Wiley & Sons and Simon & Schuster — had filed a copyright infringement suit against Google in October 2005, reports the Los Angeles Times, and this settlement does give the publishers control over whether or not a book can be part of the Library Project.

The exact terms remain a secret, but both sides seem pleased as punch with the results.

“By putting this litigation with the publishers behind us, we can stay focused on our core mission and work to increase the number of books available to educate, excite and entertain users,” said David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer.

Now, users can browse Google Play and be matched up with books according to search queries. A customer can then read up to 20% of the book they’re interested in before they have to decide whether to buy the digital version of the book in Google Play. With e-book prices not exactly super low, any extra information a reader to inform their buying decisions is definitely a good thing.

Google and publishers settle longtime dispute over digitized books [Los Angeles Times]

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