synopsis of googy news

I haven't posted much about the Google Books settlement lately, since it seems the details of the story change on a daily basis, and it is near impossible to keep up. Riding the subway this morning, I listened to a great synopsis of the Google Books settlement epic on the New York Times Books podcast.

If you have information overload about the settlement, and just want a big picture reminder, listen to the February 19th podcast at the link above. Motoko Rich's Notes from the Field focuses on the settlement as it stands to date. Great snapshot of the past and present, with real people talking about it in real-people language. If you have iTunes, it is easily accessible through that service as well.

Being admittedly author- and publisher-biased on a story like this, I must note that Rich does not mention the fair use defence Google continues to insist upon, even while settling a class-action claiming copyright infringement on a massive scale. The day unpermitted copying of entire texts for commercial use becomes "fair" will be a strange day indeed in the world of copyright, but again, that is my bias. Make up your own mind.

In related news, at least 6,500 other authors have decided the use (and settlement) was not fair, and have opted out.

goog-update

I've noticed a couple of Google Books-related happenings today. The repository for every printed word in the known universe has been busy:

The Espresso instant book making machine now seems to have an exclusive right to print the public domain works in Google's collection. Quillblog points to the LA Times story by saying Espresso has landed a lucrative contract, yet there are no details about just how lucrative this thing will be, and for whom, in the story. All we know is that a public domain Shakespeare play might run you about $8 US.

It's a brave new world.

And in what is surely an unrelated story, Google and the American writer organizations at the centre of the Google Books settlement are back in court trying to explain their deal to a worried US Department of Justice. Once they do, perhaps the DoJ will produce an instructional video -- You and the Goog.

could the Google settlement get any more complicated?

Yes.

U.S. Presses Antitrust Inquiry Into Google Book Settlement

Highlights from the New York Times:

The complex settlement agreement, which is subject to review by a federal court, was aimed at resolving a class action filed in 2005 by the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers against Google. The suit claimed that Google’s practice of scanning copyrighted books from major academic and research libraries for use in its Book Search service violated copyrights.

Under the settlement, announced in October, Google would have the right to display the books online and to profit from them by selling access to individual titles and by selling subscriptions to its entire collection to libraries and other institutions. Revenue would be shared among Google, authors and publishers.

Critics said that the settlement would unfairly grant Google a monopoly over the commercialization of millions of books.

The Times goes on to explain that this is an investigation and not necessarily a halting of the settlement.

Remember when the Internet was going to make everything simpler and faster? When was that?

the continuing adventures of the Goog

As a(nother) follow-up to the Google Books settlement news from awhile back, we have this rebuttal of agent Lynn Chu's dire warnings about the legal settlement around copyright for in-print books scanned by Google's ravenous, all-consuming scanopticon.

The Google Book Deal Will Help, Not Hurt, Authors

Google settlement round-up

Canadian authors and publishers -- please remember that you now have just over a month to officially opt out of and/or file an objection to the Google Books Settlement, if you so choose.

Those not choosing to opt out have other deadlines to keep in mind (January 5, 2010 for claims to settlement money). You will find a great deal of information (though, please note, no official legal advice) at the Access Copyright page on Google, and at the Google announcement site.

Meanwhile, objections to the settlement are bubbling to the surface, chiefly (it seems) from those with a financial stake in its failure:

A story in Wired on Microsoft's funding for an official legal challenge.

A Wall Street Journal op-ed by a prominent US agent, Lynn Chu, warning against settling with the Goog because such a move "reverses the economics of books."

And then this fuller explanation by Lynn Chu on her agency site, in which she advises that authors sit tight and do nothing.

Like Access Copyright, I advise nothing other than continuing to inform yourself about the settlement, questioning all positions and ultimately making up your own mind.

googling Sony

(image courtesy ailatan on Flickr)

In a slight detour from their idealistic attempt to bring the world's print-based public domain to the digital public square, Google has struck an undisclosed financial deal with electronics giant Sony to provide premium access to Google's scanned super-library of world literature for Sony's Reader device.

Sony is hoping that the partnership and its newly expanded library help slow some of the Kindle’s momentum. Amazon currently has 250,000 books in its Kindle library, but it stresses that they are the books people are most interested in reading, like new releases and best sellers.

Read all about it, for free!, at the New York Times website.

settling with Google

Access Copyright General Counsel, Roanie Levy explaining the Google settlement to an overflow crowd in Toronto.

Access Copyright presented one of their many cross country seminars on the recent Google Books Settlement (also available as webinars, I believe) this afternoon at the Harbour Castle Westin Hotel on Toronto's waterfront. The room filled beyond capacity very quickly and, not wanting to turn anyone away, AC arranged for more chairs. In the end, the audience spilled out the back doors of the meeting room and into the foyer.

If you are a professional writer or publisher of books in this country, and are reasonably certain your books were available for sale in the United States (including through online services such as Amazon.com) before January 5, 2009, you are automatically part of the class in this class-action settlement. That means you are eligible for compensation if your works were digitized by Google as part of their sweeping library book scanning project. A minimum of $45 million in compensation (total) for this initial digitization will be paid out to authors and publishers at a rate of $60 per book, and $15 per insert (single essays, stories, poems, etc. within a larger work such as an anthology). Registration of claims for compensation will run until January 5, 2010. Once you have claimed and received compensation, you have effectively given Google permission to continue to use your digitized work in their Google Book Search service, but with some interesting and potentially lucrative side benefits for the copyright owners. Ad revenue for online texts will be shared with the authors and publishers, and Google will also provide a sales engine for online works.

If for whatever reason you do not want any part of this settlement or Google's services, you may opt out of the settlement and request that Google remove your works from their online archive. You must opt-out before May 5, 2009.

Kudos to the entire staff at Access Copyright for doing diligent and important work in spreading the information about this settlement throughout Canada's writing and publishing sector. Supreme kudos to Roanie Levy, Access Copyright's General Counsel and Director of Policy and External Affairs for explaining the settlement in detail and taking many, many questions from the floor. Amazing work on a very important legal milestone for writing and publishing in the digital age.

I can't possibly explain all the details here. Writers and publishers owe it to themselves to be completely informed about this settlement. The best places to start are Access Copyright's website, and the Google Settlement site itself.

A great day for respect.

important news for Canadian writers and publishers

Access Copyright, the Canadian copyright licensing agency has today sent out a special notice to its affiliates calling our attention to details of the recent Google settlement in New York. The notice is also available on their website at this link.

Access Copyright has also prepared an article entitled "Why the Google Settlement Matters to You," and I'll quote from it here:

Google first announced its intention to undertake a massive project to digitize books and make them available to users in 2004. Academic libraries, including Harvard and Oxford, entered into partnerships with Google to digitize the libraries’ collections of works. However, in many cases the digitization was done without permission from the copyright owner.

In 2005, the Authors Guild, Inc. and certain authors and publisher representatives of the Association of American Publishers separately sued Google for copyright infringement.

In 2008, the parties reached a settlement agreement, which, if approved by the court in a hearing scheduled for June 11, 2009, may affect almost every book in the world, and consequently, almost every copyright owner (creator, publisher, heir or other rightsholder) who has copyright in one or more books. In fact, the settlement notice advises copyright owners to “assume that you own a U.S. copyright interest in your book”. If this applies to you, you are considered part of the settlement class for this agreement.

This is an important moment in the evolution of writing and publishing. I urge all Canadian writers and publishers to learn as much as they can about the settlement, and either register to take part in it or opt-out of the settlement altogether.

Access Copyright plans a series of web seminars and an in-person information presentation at their head office in Toronto. Here's what they have to say about that:

Web-based seminars will be offered on the following dates (all times in Eastern Standard Time):

Thursday, January 22, 2009 9:30 a.m. – noon
Monday, January 26, 2009 9:30 a.m. – noon
Wednesday, January 28, 2009 1 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Based on demand, we may add additional web-based seminars in February. Please stay tuned for more details.

A seminar on the Google settlement will also be held at Access Copyright’s offices at One Yonge Street in Toronto on Thursday, February 12, 2009 from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.

Industry News -- Google settles

In an interestingly worded blog posting, Google announces the settlement reached between it, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers (AAP) over the Google Book Search function on their search engine.

Relevant quotes:

"What makes this settlement so powerful is that in addition to being able to find and preview books more easily, users will also be able to read them. And when people read them, authors and publishers of in-copyright works will be compensated. If a reader in the U.S. finds an in-copyright book through Google Book Search, he or she will be able to pay to see the entire book online. Also, academic, library, corporate and government organizations will be able to purchase institutional subscriptions to make these books available to their members. For out-of-print books that in most cases do not have a commercial market, this opens a new revenue opportunity that didn't exist before."

...

"As part of the agreement, Google is also funding the establishment of a Book Rights Registry, managed by authors and publishers, that will work to locate and represent copyright holders. We think the Registry will help address the "orphan" works problem for books in the U.S., making it easier for people who want to use older books. Since the Book Rights Registry will also be responsible for distributing the money Google collects to authors and publishers, there will be a strong incentive for rightsholders to come forward and claim their works."

Other links of interest for this story:

Mercury News (Silicon Valley)

The Authors Guild

cnet news

digital-copyright.ca