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Delay, Renegotiation Sought For Google Books Settlement
Miracle Jones writes "The Google Books settlement has been removed from consideration by Google and the Authors Guild after the DoJ made it crystal clear that the settlement would not be ratified 'as is' due to foreign rights, privacy, and antitrust reasons. The October 7th 'fairness hearing' has been canceled, and the next step is a November 6th 'status hearing' where the plaintiffs will reveal changes to the new settlement, such as how they plan to make it more fair, legal, and inclusive, and whether or not they will need to notify all the members of the class action lawsuit (7 million writers or so) yet again as a result of the changes. Some people are very happy about this."
Google tried a fast one, the global publishing equivalent of tightly packaging a web browser with an OS, and got caught. The only "negotiations" up to this point had been akin to the conversation the kid has with the candy jar. Now, perhaps, a genuine dialogue can begin.
Hopefully whatever comes of this will help out groups like IMSLP that are working on books and other media outside the text-centric Google mold. Orphaned copyright, and excessive copyright terms in general, are too large a problem to let an almost "good enough" solution like Google Books carry the day.
This is like when airplanes were invented. Before that if you owned land, you owned it all the way up to the sky. Imagine if every airline and hobby pilot had to get permission from each individual owner of the land they would fly over. Well, it was decided that property rights would have to yield to progress. There are of course limitations, such as how low you can fly, noise and other things that actually affect the land owner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights
I clicked on the last link of the summary, which brought me to a page that has several pictures of stock car drivers in victory poses.
Are we to suppose this website got the rights from NASCAR and other related property holders to use these images?
Just a thought, since they seem to be a group championing "digital rights".
I guess you haven't heard, but it is possible to actually keep a book rather than throwing it away after it has been read. There are stores which specifically cater to the idea of buying old books, most of them being out of print. These books are not "popular" in the current sense and therefore have obviously failed, but some places still offer them for sale.
The concept of a book is an interesting one, but if Google gets their way a "book" will be a quaint collector's item that some funny old people have whereas everyone else gets their books from Google. Together with some ads. The idea of a "used book" will become about as popular as a "used kleenex" primarily because of the actions of a single corporation. Isn't this something that we, as a society, might want to think about a little bit before doing it?
Rough translation of the current state of affairs:
Google has been eyeballing this huge mass of abandoned property, as have a few other companies. Google has finally moved toward putting this property to some use. Understand, the use is not an "exclusive" thing - they are just going to use it, since no one else is. Little kids can still romp and play on the property, people can do anything they like.
But, other corporations see Google preparing to use the property, and fear that Google might make money from it in some way. Of course, if there is any financial gain to be had, then "MY COMPANY" should be entitled to some of it.
In effect, the new negotiations are meant to ensure that other people and companies CAN make money. There really isn't much more to it than that.
Odd, that Project Gutenberg has been quietly doing the same thing for some years now, and no one has jumped on them. No one else has volunteered to step forward, and get their hands dirty. Much ado about nothing, IMHO
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I mostly agree with you with the exception of certain out of print books. Somebody in another part of the thread mentioned than an author may deliberately choose to have only a small print run. I hadn't thought of that before. The work may then be valuable because it is scarce or out of print.
Personally, I understand your position, but I lean more to preferring a half-bad workaround to the current bad law, as opposed to waiting for it to be changed for the better, when the direction of recent changes are all in the opposite direction.
Frankly, I'd have been OK for the DoJ to have come out with a few recommended changes which remove Google from a monopoly position, while maintaining the orphaned works workaround.
Can you provide any actual cases even remotely resembling this? I do not believe you can, and thus i believe your argument carries almost no weight.
The settlement specifically applies to works where the intent of the copyright owner is not discoverable. Your example seems to have no application here.
Authors wishes raise some interesting questions. Some that seem worth mentioning.
1) Kafka explicitly did requested his work not be published. Should we honor his wishes? This is not an uncommon situation.
2) At what point do the authors wishes expire? One of the central goals of copyright is to expire that right. Given that the works in question are all quite old, and that the probability that the author has expired, what credence should we give that authors wishes.
3) Since the original book can be resold, and viewed by non-owners (i.e. library patrons) and the right to control that is explicitly denied the author, what distinguishes the Googles attempts?