Michael Boni

As the lawsuit over Google’s mass book-scanning moves to an endgame, news reports say the company may have to pay billions in copyright damages if it loses. These predictions, based on the Authors Guild’s decision to seek $750 per book, appear off the mark. Even though Google has scanned more than 20 million books, a closer look at the Authors Guild’s case shows that the number of writers eligible to receive any potential payout is a fraction of that number.