Baltimore, Maryland (March 22, 2011): Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, said: “The National Federation of the Blind supports access by the blind to the vast amount of knowledge contained in the millions of books available throughout the world, and we believe that the Google Books settlement is one way to achieve that access.  For that reason, we are disappointed that the court has rejected the settlement.  We will analyze the decision carefully and then determine our future course.”

On September 10, 2009, the National Federation of the Blind testified before the House Judiciary Committee that the proposed settlement between Google and authors and publishers regarding the Google Books project should be approved.  The Google Books settlement would have made millions of titles available to the blind and other Americans with print disabilities, providing more access to the printed word than the blind have had in all of human history.