$125 Million Settlement In Authors Guild v. Google

James Gleick writes "Authors, publishers, and Google are announcing a huge settlement deal today in their lawsuits over the scanning of millions of copyrighted books in library collections. Google has agreed to a huge payout for books that were scanned without permission, but now they'll be allowed to scan the books legitimately. Most important, they'll be able to put millions of books online, including those still in copyright — not just for searching and not just in snippets. There is a groundbreaking new licensing system meant to make the books as widely available as possible while protecting the authors' copyrights and enabling them to share in the revenue. Some will differ, but personally I think this is a wonderful outcome, for readers and for authors alike."

Comments

badsummary, most current books still preview only.

[Hozza]

Unfortunately the submitter's had a bit too much KoolAid.

Go read the FAQ on the linked site. Anyone except those using "designated computers" in public libraries is still only going to be able to perform limited searching and previewing of in-print works. The change is that Google will now give them the "opportunity" to buy the book too.

There is a licensing deal available for educational institutions, lets hope its affordable.

Re:at last. its f*ckin 21st century ffs.

[afabbro]

Like Lord of the Rings?

Yes. Consider that there are some Sherlock Holmes stories that are still under copyright in the USA.

Re:What about youtube then?

[whisper_jeff]

Google doesn't take video content for Youtube - users submit video content. Enormous difference.

Re:I can has source material?

[mcgrew]

If they wanted their writings available for free, then why would they bother to publish in the first place?

Cory Doctorow answered you question in the forward to Little Brother far better than I can.

I recently saw Neil Gaiman give a talk at which someone asked him how he felt about piracy of his books. He said, "Hands up in the audience if you discovered your favorite writer for free -- because someone loaned you a copy, or because someone gave it to you? Now, hands up if you found your favorite writer by walking into a store and plunking down cash." Overwhelmingly, the audience said that they'd discovered their favorite writers for free, on a loan or as a gift. When it comes to my favorite writers, there's no boundaries: I'll buy every book they publish, just to own it (sometimes I buy two or three, to give away to friends who must read those books). I pay to see them live. I buy t-shirts with their book-covers on them. I'm a customer for life.

Neil went on to say that he was part of the tribe of readers, the tiny minority of people in the world who read for pleasure, buying books because they love them. One thing he knows about everyone who downloads his books on the Internet without permission is that they're readers, they're people who love books.

People who study the habits of music-buyers have discovered something curious: the biggest pirates are also the biggest spenders. If you pirate music all night long, chances are you're one of the few people left who also goes to the record store (remember those?) during the day. You probably go to concerts on the weekend, and you probably check music out of the library too. If you're a member of the red-hot music-fan tribe, you do lots of everything that has to do with music, from singing in the shower to paying for black-market vinyl bootlegs of rare Eastern European covers of your favorite death-metal band.

Same with books. I've worked in new bookstores, used bookstores and libraries. I've hung out in pirate ebook ("bookwarez") places online. I'm a stone used bookstore junkie, and I go to book fairs for fun. And you know what? It's the same people at all those places: book fans who do lots of everything that has to do with books. I buy weird, fugly pirate editions of my favorite books in China because they're weird and fugly and look great next to the eight or nine other editions that I paid full-freight for of the same books. I check books out of the library, google them when I need a quote, carry dozens around on my phone and hundreds on my laptop, and have (at this writing) more than 10,000 of them in storage lockers in London, Los Angeles and Toronto.

If I could loan out my physical books without giving up possession of them, I would. The fact that I can do so with digital files is not a bug, it's a feature, and a damned fine one. It's embarrassing to see all these writers and musicians and artists bemoaning the fact that art just got this wicked new feature: the ability to be shared without losing access to it in the first place. It's like watching restaurant owners crying down their shirts about the new free lunch machine that's feeding the world's starving people because it'll force them to reconsider their business-models. Yes, that's gonna be tricky, but let's not lose sight of the main attraction: free lunches!

Universal access to human knowledge is in our grasp, for the first time in the history of the world. This is not a bad thing.

In case that's not enough for you, here's my pitch on why giving away ebooks makes sense at this time and place:

Giving away ebooks gives me artistic, moral and commercial satisfaction. The commercial question is the one that comes up most often: how can you give away free ebooks and still make money?

For me -- for pretty much every writer -- the big problem isn't piracy, it's obscurity (thanks to Tim O'Reilly for this great aphorism). Of all the people who faile

Distorted world picture 0, Reality 1

[Anonymous Coward]

Oil companies are not allowed to earn half the profits of apple

Oil companies make more money per dollar spent than any other kind of (legal) company on the planet. The least they could do is spend some of that money to look for cleaner source of energy.

coal companies are not allowed to operate

Sure they are. In fact, they're the biggest operators of fossil fuel burning devices on the planet. But, again, they should be held accountable for all of the damage to the environment they're doing, just as anyone else would be if they spilled toxic waste on your yard.

car companies can't make money

Really? Toyota's making a killing. It's the American, old-fashion car industry that's making nothing.

Times change. Either you adapt, or you build up a mole hill big enough to crush anyone else who attempts to adapt. But even the tallest mole hills eventually crumble. Now even the big car companies you're complaining about are begging the government for handouts. Tough cookies, you should have spent some of those massive profits you were making from SUV sales on something productive.

Re:at last. its f*ckin 21st century ffs.

[afabbro]

Nice assertion. Which ones?

The stories contained in Case Book of Sherlock Holmes are under copyright in the USA until 2016 to 2033, depending on the story.

Gee kid, I guess my assertion is true.