Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Monday, August 17, 2009

Google Books adds OA, CC-licensed books

Xian Ke, Bringing the power of Creative Commons to Google Books, Inside Google Books, August 13, 2009.

Today, we're launching an initiative to help authors and publishers discover new audiences for books they've made available for free under Creative Commons (CC) licenses. Rightsholders who want to distribute their CC-licensed books more widely can choose to allow readers around the world to download, use, and share their work via Google Books. ...

If you're a rightsholder interested in distributing your CC-licensed book on Google Books, you have a few different options. If you're already part of our Partner Program, you can make your book available under CC by updating account settings. If not, you can sign up as a partner. You can select from one of seven Creative Commons options, and usage permissions will vary depending on the license.

We've marked books that rightsholders have made available under a CC license with a matching logo on the book's left hand navigation bar. People can download these books in their entirety and pass them along: to friends, classmates, teachers, and so on. ...

This is just the beginning of this initiative. As authors and publishers tell us which works they want to share on Google Books under CC licenses, we'll be turning on the option to restrict your search to books you can share. In addition, representatives of the Book Rights Registry intend to allow rightsholders to distribute CC-licensed works for free (pending court approval of the settlement).