Google has announced that it is to make electronic books sold
through its online store available to any device with a web
browser.
Google has turned its back on propriety e-readers such as
Amazon's Kindle, which Amazon plan to launch in 100 countries,
in favour of electronic books that can run on multiple
platforms.
The searchable online book store, Google Editions, is to be
launched in the first half of next year and will offer about half a
million e-books for which it has agreed digital rights.
Google Editions will allow Google to make money for the first
time out of one of its controversial book scanning projects,
according to
Reuters.
Google will give publishers 63% of revenues from e-books sold
directly to consumers. Google's will get only a small share for
e-books sold through retailers, with 45% going to publishers.
Google is still trying to settle a lawsuit in the US with
publishers and authors over its Google Books project that has
scanned about 10 million books, some without copyright holders'
permission.
The two parties reached a
controversial $125m settlement, but the US Department of
Justice ordered a review because of copyright concerns.
The federal judge tasked with reviewing the settlement called
for the
deal to be revised by 9 November.
According to Google, the revised settlement will include
European books that have been scanned in US libraries.