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Questions Linger Over Google Book Rights Registry
We've discussed the fallout from Google's settlement with the Authors Guild a few times already. Now the issue is made pointed again by a Wall Street Journal editorial claiming that the settlement will ruin a functioning copyright system if it is finally ratified, as expected, in June by a federal court. Reader daretoeatapeach writes: "In the US this will establish a Book Rights Registry where authors can opt-in to 63% of the revenues of each book, the rest going to Google. While previously Amazon had cornered the market on e-books, Google's partnership with Sony will create a serious dent: 500,000 books to Amazon's 250,000. Though Google is currently only releasing the books that are in the public domain, they ultimately plan to sell the 7 million e-books they've scanned (and counting). This raises a lot of questions about the future of publishing: Do we want only one company (e.g. Google) controlling access to information? Should publishers get a cut of the money, at least as long as their book is being scanned? Will broader access to trade journals affect their relationship and reliance on libraries? If, in the future, more authors opt out of the traditional publishing model, when will this hit the 'recession-proof' book industry? And has the publishing industry learned any lessons from MP3s?"
Is Google willing to sell me a dead tree copy of the book? If not, I'm not interested.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Well I still like paper books. I find it far easier to read if it is printed, I can't even read more than a page or two of a pdf before I print it out... let alone a whole bloody book!
like phosphorescent desert buttons singing one familiar song
The publisher who makes the effort to put material on the most widely read medium always prevails. Looks like google is doing what the dead tree publishers refuse to do.
I am not as worried about one company controlling all these ebooks as I am that these books would never get published in electronic format otherwise. I mean, lets face it, ePublishing is the way of the future, maybe not with this round of devices (Sony PRS and Amazon Kindle) but eventually it will happen. It has to happen.
Public domain books are not so much the issue, but there are a lot of other books out there that have been published in the latter half of the 20th century. As long as traditional publishing houses drag their feet trying to figure out how to squeeze the consumer for am much as they can, many of these books will languish.
These books may eventually see publication, in the same way that many old movies once available on VHS were eventually released on DVD, but there are many classic movies that are still not available on DVD, some that were not even available on VHS.
If one company has taken it upon themselves to preserve the written word by scanning in these books, great. If they want to charge a nominal fee to make it available, that fine, as long as they make it available. I have recently become a fan of 30's and 40's pulp fiction. Much of this will likely not be reprinted, but still falls under copyright. If Google has a lot of it scanned and preserved and wants to sell me some, great, I'll buy, because I'd rather have them control it than lose it.
http://xkcd.com/548/
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
"the settlement will ruin a functioning copyright system"
I suppose he's implying the current copyright system will be unaffected, right?
Right?
Ok, I think the guy from WSJ has some kind of a point, but...
We already have a good system. It's called the system of private property and free contract, designed for dispersed, autonomous individuals -- not command-and-control centers.
I don't know the situation in the US, but in Brazil we have 2 or 3 publishers that hold 95% of the market. That doesn't seem to me much different from 'comand and control centers'.
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
>Should publishers get a cut of the money, at least as long as their book is being scanned?
Definitely. Especially if the book has been out of print for decades and the publisher has no plans, and no interest, in every publishing fresh copies. We need to keep the revenue going to the people it's always gone to!
* Do we want only one company (e.g. Google) controlling access to information?
No.
* Should publishers get a cut of the money, at least as long as their book is being scanned?
Hell no. All they should do is going to the aforementioned place.
* Will broader access to trade journals affect their relationship and reliance on libraries?
Definitely. What's the raison d'être of a library when even the cheap HD of my home computer can store more books than any library ever?
* If, in the future, more authors opt out of the traditional publishing model, when will this hit the 'recession-proof' book industry?
You bet. They had it coming.
* And has the publishing industry learned any lessons from MP3s?
Is this a joke?
Generally speaking, I very much prefer paper books too... and can't see ever switching over to a Kindle or any other sort of e-reader.
However, the one advantage that e-books have over the real thing is that I can't throw my feet up on my cubicle desk and read a paper book... but I CAN spend all day reading a PDF (and/or Slashdot), and it looks like I'm working.
Since I spend a quarter-to-a-third of my life sitting at the office, working jobs that involve 10% programming work and 90% being held up by inefficient management, time-fillers are an important part of my life. In a perfect world, I could just waste time openly and perhaps encourage management to get its organization together so I'd be less bored. In the real world though that would just get me outsourced, so I need to give the impression that I'm "heads down" and slaving away for my brilliant manager. E-books help.
I am not worried about Google controlling all these ebooks since they seem to be giving them away - at least the out-of-copyright ones. See these articles for examples. I'm not sure how they will deal with spreading around IN-copyright books. Google gives away half a million books to Sony eBook Storeâ¦. challenge to Amazon?? Academic libraries pave a new path away from Google
Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
This is certainly true of LED screens.
E-ink, on the other hand, I find as easy to read as paper, and when reading in short bursts I find it significantly handier, if for no other reason than it remembers exactly where I was, rather than me spending 30 seconds working out exactly where I was.
My Journal
And the paranoia of knowing the ebook I read today can be changed tomorrow to reflect a different view.
Online books are a great resource but the paper and ink industry must continue at any cost. Scholarly journal publishers will have to seriously rethink their business model. Online out of print books is a tremendous service to the public. Out of print books almost should be required to be online-capable status. But then multiple printings of a book is a clear sign of readership.
Dover publications has for decades been a staple on my bookshelves as they provide an affordable version of many technical books in multiple fields.
I do have concerns with a single entity having control of the gateway to an ever growing body of human knowledge. "Do no evil" is very much not the same as "do good" or "do no harm".
Should publishers get a cut of the money, at least as long as their book is being scanned?
Hell yes. How would anything else not be piracy? In fact, maybe skip the publishers but ensure the authors get a cut -- since when is author royalties are an "opt in" thing?
I don't get how Google can get away with what seems to be large-scale professional copyright infringement (and please don't say it's because it's large scale and professional).
"Good news, everyone!"
Oh, I see, you've written so many books there's no possible way you can remember them all to fill out a web form for each one.
I'm sorry, if you don't care enough to opt out, then ALL HUMANS SHOULD GET THE INFO. No more of this, "It's mine, you can't have it, I don't care if I'm not using it, I'd rather it was wasted just so I can hoard it."
As long as Google is not the EXCLUSIVE stealer of info, so other companies can swoop in and ALSO distribute unclaimed works, this doesn't make one company too strong.
I applaud this sentiment. ALL info should go this path. Let's sum it up as: Oh, YOU don't care? Well, WE do.
I actually realized in high school that a reflective instead of emissive display was the pilotal tech missing... (Before I heard about e-ink.)
Yup, my old and dead Psion Revo had a transflective screen, so the more ambient light there was, the better it got -- just like paper (but, naturally, not as hi-res). I read a good deal of books on that thing I burned through Borroughs' Mars-trilogy while on the bus); it's very adequate as an e-book reader, and certainly cheaper than what's "modern" on the market right now.
Other than that, yes, a device that only needs power (and cpu time) to "flip the page" is definitely the future.
"Good news, everyone!"
I know, I know, everyone always bitches about a bad summary, but this one's really bad. The linked article doesn't really claim that authors have a "functioning copyright system." The article argues that authors won't get a good deal if they give up their individual contract negotiation rights for a one-size-fits-all Google deal. Anyone who thinks (here in America anyway) we have a "functioning system of copyright" hasn't been paying too much attention for the last several years...
I'm using all of my mod points to mod ancient memes down. Please join me.
Hell yes. How would anything else not be piracy? In fact, maybe skip the publishers but ensure the authors get a cut -- since when is author royalties are an "opt in" thing?
I don't get how Google can get away with what seems to be large-scale professional copyright infringement (and please don't say it's because it's large scale and professional).
I believe they are opting in to having their books published. if they allow that then they getthe royalty money.
While Google is protesting Microsoft's de facto monopoly of desktop client software, it is working hard to create a de jure and de facto monopoly for itself in an important area of content. In the proposed settlement, Google is the ONLY legal site for ALL [in copyright but out of print] printed content.
How is this a good thing?
Apologies for the cowardly anonymity, not my normal style, but there's plenty to worry about here.
These books are all in the public domain, right? What's the big deal? If the authors get any money at all its a bonus to them. This is completely a win/win scenario. The other options being that the books don't get published at all or that a publisher actually uses the copyright laws like they were meant makes copies of these public domain books without giving a cent to the author.
How would anything else not be piracy?
When it's the settlement of a class-action lawsuit. Members of a class traditionally have to opt-out.
The aging baby boomers now flacking the settlement don't seem to understand that PDF scanning (how Google and everyone else digitizes books) isn't rocket science; it's cheap and easy. Books will be digitized without Google.
Actually, from what I've read, scanning books on any large scale is not cheap or easy. It's a fairly expensive undertaking, involving more specialized equipment than your desktop flatbed scanner, and involves moving lots of books around, in and out of large libraries. It's not an undertaking for the faint of heart. Microsoft tried, and decided to quit. Furthermore, the value of having a single large repository is greater than a bunch of fractured repositories that probably won't have a good way of connecting with one another.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
A casual survey of the books on my desk:
Looks to me like the standard practice is to transfer ownership of the IP to the publisher in exchange for a percentage of any future profits. Once the creator of the work does that, they no longer own the work and cannot sell it again to someone else.
There are probably exception clauses in some contracts, which may allow the author to reacquire the ownership of the work if the publisher no longer wishes to publish it.
TLDR: The author doesn't own the book, the publisher who bought the book does.
What's comical is that this is done everyday by volunteers (pirates) in irc. Granted, not all books, or the rare old ones, but it happens on a large scale (10000+ scans is average).
500,000 scanned books is impressive.
I'm still not seeing the cause for concern. The settlement only applies to in copyright, out of print works. If your books are still in print, the settlement doesn't apply to you. What benefit does an author receive from preventing Google from selling these works that were out of print?
That's the date by which every author and publisher in America is supposed to decide whether to "opt in," "opt out," or simply "ignore" a vast compulsory licensing scheme for the benefit of Google. Most, about 88%, are expected to "ignore." That's because they know their online display rights have value, and the last thing they want is to be herded like sheep into a giant contract commitment.
OK, so it's an option - a new market that the author can choose to participate in, as he or she wishes?
For private gain, the Google parties now seek to destroy the health in the system that individual bargaining preserves.
"Seek to destroy"? It's an option - a new market option.
Disputes will be fixed in arbitration with no access to federal courts which have often shown mercy to authors. Arbitrators will be "you sign it you eat it" line-parsing bureaucrats.
This differs from a contract with binding-arbitration between an author and a traditional publisher how?
If she's arguing that authors should choose to ignore, that seems reasonable. But that last bit sounds like she is claiming there is evil in allowing Google to offer the new business model. Is she an author? Maybe she is a PR person for a traditional publisher? Do I just not get it, and there actually is some new impediment inflicted upon the author here? Or is this article fishy?
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Literary Agent Janet Reid has a rather scathing rebuttal to Chu's article which Reid (who has actually read the settlement, something Chu did not do) feels is spectacularly uninformed and incorrect. I tend to agree with Reid. (FYI, I am an author whose in copyright books were scanned by Google. I am a member of the class.)
ALL HAIL THE ALMIGHTY GOOGLE! But seriously, if you have ever used the Books app it is a revolutionary way of studying, reading, searching an entire books text. I am all for it.
The Internet Archive does that. Although not on a very large scale.
The print-on-demand industry has, I think, made a positioning error. They produce cheap paperbacks at hardcover prices. What's needed is a high-quality hardcover binding machine as part of the print-on-demand process. The actual manufacturing cost of binding a book is about $1-$2, but the markup on hardcovers is much higher. Lulu.com now does hardcovers, but they all look exactly the same, all with the same dimensions and bound in plain blue linen. They charge $15 extra for hardcover binding, which is excessive.
Screen devices will take over the disposable book market. There's no reason to use paper for read-once books.
One thing I don't get:
What about people who don't become authors until after the opt-out deadline? Suppose five years from now, I decide to write a first book. Will I be forced abide by Google's terms if I don't opt-out now? How about authors thirty years from now who haven't even been born yet?
I think what irks me most about this settlement is the arrogance of the Author's Guild in presuming to represent all authors that ever have or ever will exist.
And, more specifically, fuck Google getting rich off my work without my permission. Why the hell should they be able to sell my work to fund another executive jet unless I specifically ask them not to? I have published a few mathematics text books, most of which I have endeavoured to publish as cheaply as possible (consistent with good paper/binding quality), and I receive only a trickle of payment. I'm happy to mail PDF copies to anyone who asks - hell, they are all over the P2P networks and I couldn't give a damn.
I propose being able to use all of Google's intellectual property unless Brin and Page fill out a form which requires uploading of a video of their dancing I Want To Break Free in that drag they wear so well. Sound arbitrary? I couldn't give a fuck. Hey, Google, where is the theory behind your search algorithms that you spent half a decade promising to the world, thus temporarily earning the respect of the geeks that made you so popular? Oh, that's right, you just want everyone else's "information to be free". Hypocritical bastards.
On a plus note, the short sighted repair work Western governments are doing to their broken economies might mean that the Internet itself lose its status as ubiquitous commodity in the next two or three decades. Look on our works, ye Mighty, and despair!
My wife is a associate of research at Duke... a nobody in the grand scheme of academia but even she has had trouble accessing her OWN research because of how certain magazines publish their material.
Now... imagine that Google provides this in a cost matrix. Not only does it make it FAR easier to find research you need, but a whole new science appears that was all but impossible because of the fragmented way things are done.
Some of you might be "welcome our new overlords" but when you really look at it from a technical standpoint this far outweighs anything else I've seen. Additionally most projects involving federal grants are now required to use publishers who allow free access to the research for those involved. This is exactly this.
Of course publishers are scared to death. I mean... here are just a few reasons...
1) Able to quickly find research, books, magazine articles etc
2) You do not have to follow retardedly complexe guidelines to get your paper published (All of you researchers and faculty know what I mean).
3) You can begin to evaluate trends in research data... imagine being able to correlate hundreds of published works about a specific subject and generating data... on the fly. Yeah that's going to become possible
4) Imagine being able to type in an author and see a full list of their works without having to figure out which publishers they've published at and purchase accounts to view it.
This concept removes a system of control... not a working copyright system. It removes the profiteering publishers who are much like the RIAA of today than an actual helpful organization.
Profits begin to return to those who do the work but more importantly information that should be free returns to it.
In fact, maybe skip the publishers but ensure the authors get a cut -- since when is author royalties are an "opt in" thing?
As I understand it, that's exactly how it works. Authors get royalties for books read by subscribers of the "Google Reader" program. Google will also provide links to Amazon, etc., for those who want to easily buy printed copies of in-print books. Authors do have to opt in to collect the money, because Google isn't going to try to figure out where to send the checks.
Also, keep in mind that Google will not publish in-print books at all unless the author opts in. It's only out-of-print books where the system is opt-out. For those, authors have three choices -- do nothing, in which case their book is available and they get nothing, register, in which case their book is available and they get royalties, or opt out, in which case their book is unavailable and they get nothing.
Honestly, how many authors of out-of-print books do you think will opt out? The ONLY case where it would make sense to opt out is if the author is currently working with a publisher to put the book in print again. And if that's the case, then what's the big deal about going to Google and opting out? The publisher will do it for you -- unless, as I expect, it turns out that opting in is good for in-print books also.
Baen's Free Library experiment has shown that giving electronic copies away for free boosts sales. I think in the short term authors and publishers all over are going to discover the same thing, and eventually most in-print authors will opt in.
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It's not piracy because we are talking about material that is public domain. That means the copyright has ran out on the works that google is currently scanning.
The purpose of copyright is two-fold. First to allow authors to profit from their work, and second to encourage creation of more works. If copyright protections were permanent, people capable of producing great works would produce fewer because they could keep claiming royalties on what they had already done forever. So authors are given exclusive control over their works for a period of time to let them make a profit, then that protection ends. And with the recent change in US copyright law to extend copyright to 75 years after the death of the author, google won't be able to scan newer works for a long time unless they make deals with the publishers (and authors, assuming they didn't sign all their rights over to the publisher, but that's another argument...).
Likely the authors don't even have rights to the books they wrote, but the publishers do.
Imagine if you will, a publisher with 50,000 books that may or may not be in Google's database. That's a lot of searching and clicking "no" for one company. They'll have to hire a bunch of people just for that.
If authors really do still own the rights to their work, each finding the 5-20 books they wrote should not take more than an afternoon.
Thats about as good as selling Kramer's videos of movies.
I'd say that you probably have a bunch of technical books, and technical book deals very often assign the copyright to the publisher.
Beginning authors are likely to have to assign copyright to the publisher as well, unless they have an agent and a really hot property. Stephen King might have had to assign the copyright for Carrie (his first book).
I'd bet anything that for Cell (a recent Stephen King book) he did not have to assign copyright, wasn't asked and it just never, ever came up.
Actually the purpose is "one-fold": to encourage creation of more work. The METHOD is by helping authors to profit from their work.
- Joy Butler, Attorney and Author of The Permission Seeker's Guide Through the Legal Jungle
Some book publishing companies pay about 1$ per copy sold to the author, so 63% is excellent!
This should scare publishers to the death because it basically stops them to screw over the authors in the long run...
I am all for it!
You are correct. I do have a lot of technical books on my desk. This week, most of them happen to be LaTeX references.
The point I was trying to make: the author is not always the copyright holder. The copyright holder is the one that can assign rights under a scheme like this, not the work creator.
If I'm going for recreational reading, I'll go to a bookstore - book shopping is part of the relaxation.
I'm more likely to buy a technical book in electronic form, because "I need it now" and none of the local bookstores carry it.
I'm not likely to buy anything tied specifically to a device like a Kindle or a Sony Reader - Give me a PDF that I can put on whatever device I want. (Kindle and Reader are both too big for me - if it doesn't fit in my pocket comfortably, I won't use it.)
Back when I still carried a PDA, I had a good sized collection of text files of books which I would read during downtimes like bus commutes. I may load some of those onto my Rockbox player, as it is (almost) always with me, can handle flat text files pretty well, and reading may be more useful than playing solitaire or jewels.
No way I'm giving up my Tom Swift, Jr. collection.
Note to designers: Please stop implementing the limitations of a previous technology as "features" in a new technology. I really have no desire to see a slow animation of a page turning nor have a little "thwick" sound as the "page" "turns". Just show the next set of information.
I work for a publisher. For the past several years, we've been sending Google our books to scan and in many cases, we have sent them PDF documents. We granted Google permission to show x% of each title for free. Now, it appears that we get to go back and say, "but you can't sell the rest of it either." One more maintenance item that adds to our costs.
... I'm for it. Those idiots at the Journal never get anything right. Go GOOG!
That is all.
>>Do we want only one company (e.g. Google) controlling access to information? If only there were places we could go where all the information was virtually free! These places, they could be in almost every town and America. People could take the information home - for easy access - then bring it back when they were done with it. Then maybe we could keep evil, monopolizing tyrants like Google from hoarding all our precious and rare information; public domain or no!
FYI, Google Reader is a RSS reader, and has nothing to do with books.
Move along, no sig to see here.
Hmm. I don't remember what the other thing is called, then. It's a (planned) subscription program, where you pay a flat monthly fee for unlimited access to the full text of books.
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