Google Book Settlement and how it affects readers and writers
I think it's past time I blogged about this, because, while most of the published authors reading this probably know about it already, some may not. And readers are affected by this news as well.
Google Books is making arrangements to have a monopoly on offering digital access to out-of-print books. A deal that it made with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers allows it to sell access to all out-of-print books that are still in copyright (read that a second time) unless the copyright owner opts out of the settlement. Alternatively, the copyright owner can make a claim in order to receive a share of the profit on the books by them that Google sells.
I use Google Books a lot for my research. I not only download public domain books but I use the "limited preview" on copyrighted books. I'd love to be able to access many more books on Google Books than I do, and I thought it was just plain stupid when the publishing industry sued Google Books for displaying brief snippets of copyrighted books. That's fair use, guys.
So I'm the target audience that Google Books is aiming toward. I ought to be jumping for joy at the idea of access to every copyrighted out-of-print book that Google can get its hands on.
I'm not.
This is a monopoly, guys. Monopolies are never good, no matter how benevolent the monopolist. Google Books can charge whatever it wants for access to these books and place any restrictions on access that it wants, and all that the rest of us can do is say, "Pretty please?"
Also, the opt-out clause - while it's meant to deal with the very serious issue of orphan works - is just not acceptable. Google Books is asking every single author in the entire world to indicate, in a short time, whether they want their out-of-print books to be sold solely by Google Books. What if the authors don't hear about this agreement? A lot won't.
An indication of how serious this situation is can be found from the fact that a lot of organizations that are very much in favor of easy digital access to books are opposed to this plan. The Internet Archive, for one. (The Internet Archive is a multi-organizational project that provides e-texts of printed books; it's the biggest alternative to Google Books, but unlike Google Books, it's open source.) Wired - which normally pops champaigne bottles every time electronic text is made available - isn't happy. Neither is David Rothman at TeleRead, a very big promoter of e-books and online text.
Regardless as to how you view the matter, authors should take a look at the Google Book Settlement site. The site provides instructions on how to opt out of the settlement or (alternatively) to make claims to receive money. The deadline (which was supposed to be May 5) has been extended to September 4.
Google Books is making arrangements to have a monopoly on offering digital access to out-of-print books. A deal that it made with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers allows it to sell access to all out-of-print books that are still in copyright (read that a second time) unless the copyright owner opts out of the settlement. Alternatively, the copyright owner can make a claim in order to receive a share of the profit on the books by them that Google sells.
I use Google Books a lot for my research. I not only download public domain books but I use the "limited preview" on copyrighted books. I'd love to be able to access many more books on Google Books than I do, and I thought it was just plain stupid when the publishing industry sued Google Books for displaying brief snippets of copyrighted books. That's fair use, guys.
So I'm the target audience that Google Books is aiming toward. I ought to be jumping for joy at the idea of access to every copyrighted out-of-print book that Google can get its hands on.
I'm not.
This is a monopoly, guys. Monopolies are never good, no matter how benevolent the monopolist. Google Books can charge whatever it wants for access to these books and place any restrictions on access that it wants, and all that the rest of us can do is say, "Pretty please?"
Also, the opt-out clause - while it's meant to deal with the very serious issue of orphan works - is just not acceptable. Google Books is asking every single author in the entire world to indicate, in a short time, whether they want their out-of-print books to be sold solely by Google Books. What if the authors don't hear about this agreement? A lot won't.
An indication of how serious this situation is can be found from the fact that a lot of organizations that are very much in favor of easy digital access to books are opposed to this plan. The Internet Archive, for one. (The Internet Archive is a multi-organizational project that provides e-texts of printed books; it's the biggest alternative to Google Books, but unlike Google Books, it's open source.) Wired - which normally pops champaigne bottles every time electronic text is made available - isn't happy. Neither is David Rothman at TeleRead, a very big promoter of e-books and online text.
Regardless as to how you view the matter, authors should take a look at the Google Book Settlement site. The site provides instructions on how to opt out of the settlement or (alternatively) to make claims to receive money. The deadline (which was supposed to be May 5) has been extended to September 4.
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