Another milestone in a significant legal dispute has passed; a revised version of the Google Books settlement was submitted to U.S. District Court late Friday.  It looks like the book-scanning clash isn’t nearly over, however, since some powerful groups still have qualms about Google’s proposed resolution.

It could be said that the Google Books case is becoming the new Microsoft-Yahoo deal, having created all sorts of controversy and dragged on and on.  And on some more, as it turns out, since the involved parties are pushing a target date back again.

Big libraries are neat – the idea of having so much information (and entertainment) available in one place is just inherently attractive.  The trouble is, big libraries can also be overwhelming, and so Google Books has tried to make its own virtual library a little more accessible by creating a list of available magazines.

An end to the long-running argument over the Google Books settlement may be in sight.  A federal judge has asked both sides to return to court and submit a new agreement by November 9th, with the idea of completely wrapping things up a month or two later.

French publishers had their first day in court today as a case concerning Google Books began.  Various organizations are clamoring for Google to stop scanning manuscripts, and the plaintiffs are seeking about $22 million in compensation, too.

The La Martiniere publishing group originally brought its case against Google several years ago.  Since then, the Syndicat National de l’Edition and the Societe des gens de letters have offered their support.

Few people would argue that computer monitors – no matter how big and how nice – are suitable for displaying entire books.  Even if the text looks okay, monitors still can’t be carried into the kitchen or held above your head on a recliner.  So it may interest readers (along with critics of the Google Books settlement) to know that Google has provided On Demand Books access to its library.

More and more, it’s shaping up to be Google versus the world as far as the proposed Google Books settlement is concerned.  In fact, the head of the U.S. Copyright Office sided against Google today, and she seemed to consider that scenario is a real possibility.

Google’s scaled back its literature-related plans in the hopes of not angering publishers and regulators in Europe; the company has said that it won’t add content to Google Books if it’s available for sale on that continent.  At least a few important critics seem unimpressed, however, as France is objecting in a U.S. court. 

Google has introduced a new privacy policy for Google Books, to try and appease the critics of Google’s enormous book indexing project. The company has also been in communication with the Federal Trade Commission, and has discussed both the new policy and a letter to the FTC on the Google Public Policy Blog.

Interread, the British company that owns CoolerBooks.com, has announced a partnership with Google in which it will include over a million public domain books from Google Books in its online library. This makes CoolerBooks the first ebookstore outside the US to partner with Google Books.

Google is now offering downloads of public domain books in Google Books in the EPUB format, which is an open and free industry standard for electronic books. This format is supported by a wide variety of different applications, so it should be easy for many people to access literature this way.

Users can download the public domain books by simply clicking the "download" button in the Google Books Toolbar, which provides a drop-down menu to choose the file format.

Microsoft, Yahoo, and Amazon have reportedly banded together under the organization of the Internet Archive and antitrust lawyer Gary Reback, to try and put a stop to Google’s settlement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers over Google Book Search.

Google Books may get much, much bigger in the very near future.  Although the Bibliotheque Nationale de France (BNF, or the National Library of France) criticized the project in the past, reports indicate that it should soon seal a deal, open its doors, and become an ally, instead.

Google is now offering a way for authors and publishers to offer content for free under the Creative Commons license on Google Books. Rightsholders who want to distribute their books can let users download, use, and share them.

Free stuff has a way of piquing people’s interest, and Google intends to capitalize on this fact with a new competition that is starting today.  10 Days in Google Books may drive use of the search giant’s literature-related service by putting Sony Readers on the line.

Google signed a settlement agreement with authors and publishers last year over Google Books. Google says that if it is approved by the court, it will unlock access to millions of books for anyone in the United States.

Today, Google has addressed privacy concerns that users and potential users have voiced with regards to Google Books.

Google introduced seven new features to Google Books today. The features add ways to share and browse the content users find in Google’s collection. They include:

Need a scary story before you tuck your trick-or-treaters in bed that will make them convulse with fright until they lay unconscious in a nightmarish hell until morning? Google can help.

Google took another step toward the company’s stated goal of indexing the world’s information by adding the entire collection of public domain historical resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Wisconsin Historical Society Library to its Google Books Library Project.

Google’s dustup with publishers around the globe last year over its plan to digitize every book in its path, sans permission, gave someone an idea. What if we do that with their permission? LibreDigital general manager Craig Miller says his company’s digitization service isn’t in direct response to Google, but a “natural extension” of what they were already doing.