Paul Courant spoke to Inside Higher Ed about a new objection to the pending settlement over the Google Books project. According to the article, 80 professors from around the country recently filed a letter with U.S. District Court of New York objecting to settlement revisions pertaining to unclaimed “orphan works.”
While Courant was described as "empathetic" to these concerns, he told Inside Higher Ed he thought it better to keep the arbitration process moving forward with the long-term goal in mind: broad, not necessarily free, access to books. Courant also suggested authors take a pro-active approach to prevent future confusion, "We ought to start a movement to make sure every academic executes a Creative Commons license, so that their digitized work will become freely available," he told Inside Higher Ed.