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The article states that U.S. technology firm settled a lawsuit with French authors and publishers concerning the online sale of out-of-print French books as of June 12, 2012.

The article reports on the concessions made by the online-search company Google Inc. with European publishers to remove all commercially available European books from its program to scan orphaned and out-of-print books in the U.S. The concessions were made after European authors and publishers complained about the practice of Google to scan books by European authors protected by copyrights without their permission. The company pledged to assign to non-U.S. representatives on the board of the Books Rights Registry.

The author discusses the reasons for his reluctance to buy books. He states that his hesitation was pounded into him by his father. He says his father would purchase out-of-print books at a used-book store at a low price. He adds that as a miserly person, he considers owning a book a serious relationship.

The article features some of the most searched-for out-of-print book titles in the past year, according to the rankings of BookFinder.com, including "The Bed Book," by Sylvia Plath and "Sisters," by Lynne Cheney.

Reports on the implications for authors and publishers about on-demand publishing, which renders ambiguous the status of out-of-print books. Traditional reversion to the author of the book rights after six months of out-of-print status; On-demand printing, which allows publishers unimpeded ownership of book rights; Partnership of the Author's Guild with electronic publisher toExcel.com.