From the point of negotiated settlements, the Google Books question shifted from primarily a copyright
decision to being mostly a business decision. The judge did consider copyright issues when considering the
case, but the agreements between Google and the publishers are business agreements based on the monetary
interest in books that copyright law gives to authors and publishers. Google is carefully persuading the
authors and publishers that there is an advantage to them to allow Google to continue with its bookscanning
project. If the settlement had been approved by the judge, it would not have constituted case
law. The court did not make these decisions; the parties involved came up with them in order to avoid a
long, dicult lawsuit - and then sought court approval to proceed.