"Authors Guild" Skims Half of Google Book-Rights Settlement

Miracle Jones writes "A recent memo from the 'Author's Guild' to the writers and publishers that it supposedly represents shows that only $45 million of the $125 million dollar settlement with Google will be paid to writers, and that the most a writer can receive for a book is $300. Many people speculate that Google's monopoly over all of out-of-copyright works will result in a brutal monopoly that will hurt both writers and readers, and that the 'Author's Guild' had no right to make the deal in the first place. How will it all shake down? Should writers be paid at all for their work? Will Google be any good at the publishing racket?"

Comments

Summary and blogspam link laughably incorrect

[elrous0]

This summary is laughably inaccurate, biased, and sensational. This agreement doesn't give Google anything even *like* a "monopoly over all out-of-copyright works." If a work is out-of-copyright Google (or anyone else for that matter) is free to do whatever the hell they want with it. The issue of this case was the right to provide SEARCH RESULTS for COPYRIGHTED books. The Authors Guild was suing Google because they said Google didn't have the right to provide full text search results for copyrighted texts (even if the results page of the search only displayed a couple of sentences from the text). Rather than fight out what was probably a legitimate fair-use case, Google simple paid them off. This case has nothing to do with whether a writer should be "paid for their work." These are just SEARCH RESULTS we're talking about, not full texts.

Full details (minus the blogspam and reactionary hyperbole) are available here.

Re:Summary and blogspam link laughably incorrect

[xouumalperxe]

The mantra is "All IP is bad except when you use copyright to enforce the GPL."

Irrespectively of my own personal position on the matter of copyright, you seem to fail to grasp a crucial concept: The whole point of the GPL is to game the system: either you say copyright doesn't matter, and the stuff is free to share, or you say it does matter, and the GPL says the stuff is free to share. Crying foul over GPL infringement isn't so much a turn-face as it is saying this: "We don't believe in your rules, but we went ahead played by them to achieve what we wanted. So, now you either you play by our rules, or you play by yours. But whichever you pick, you'd better freaking follow them."

Out of copyright monopoly?

[amclay]

I don't even see how this is possible. If a work isn't copyright, then anyone can publish it without paying royalties. I'm not sure how a company can make a business off of that alone, or how that can be construed to be a "monopoly." This is simply put, an article solely put out there to rile readers.

I'm glad we have established libraries.

[Beelzebud]

I'm glad we had libraries before copyright lawyers. If someone suggested the concept of a library today as a new idea, it would be shot down instantly.

This isn't about "out of copyright" works

[Animats]

This isn't about "out of copyright" works. It's about works that are still under copyright, but out of print. Google effectively just bought the rights to all out of print books.

Here's the Author's Guild description of the deal. Authors can opt out, but only have until May 9 to do so.

These are the actual terms:

The settlement, if Court-approved, will authorize Google to scan in-copyright Books and Inserts in the United States, and maintain an electronic database of Books. For out-of-print Books and, if permitted by Rightsholders of in-print Books, Google will be able to sell access to individual Books and institutional subscriptions to the database, place advertisements on any page dedicated to a Book, and make other commercial uses of Books. At any time, Rightsholders can change instructions to Google regarding any of those uses. Through a Book Rights Registry ("Registry") established by the settlement, Google will pay Rightsholders 63% of all revenues from these uses.

The publishing stranglehold is failing anyway

[einhverfr]

The publishing industry worked very well when the only way you could self-publish was with expensive long offset runs. Nowadays, print on demand is making self-publishing much easier and more affordable. Add to it affordable typesetting/design software, and you have a chance to really crack these cartels.

I recently published my book via a POD publisher (Booksurge). You can see it at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1439223084/

I also do micro-runs for wholesale (100 copies of the book at a time).

Interestingly.... I did the entire book design, including the cover, in LaTeX. It came out great. I am extremely happy with the quality that the free software in this area is able to provide. The only few issues are design mistakes I made, and not software limitations (the barcode should be placed differently on the back, etc).

My most recent journal entry includes a follow-up post on advice for people designing books using LaTeX.