“Court documents related to the Fairness Hearing held in New York last week” have revealed that several major British publishers, agents, and authors — including bestsellers ranging from Lord Jeffrey Archer to John LeCarre and Zadie Smith — “have all opted out of the revised Google Book Settlement entirely,” says a report from The Bookseller by Benedicte Page. In addition, says the report, “Literary estates opting out include those of Roald Dahl, H G Wells, J G Ballard, James Herriott and Neville Shute.”

Agent Sonia Land of the Sheil Land Agency says she opted out on behalf of her clients early last year.

“We have so many hundreds of clients and we have opted out en masse,” she said. “I have seen a few letters from other agencies [to authors about the Google Settlement] and the advice was so vague. I was very proactive – I thought, ‘There’s no way Google have the right to scan the works of my authors.’ They had some of our in-print books, which are still selling in huge quantities, and they had no right to do it.”

She added: “I’m so angry with what Google did. Copyright is something we fought for.”