Google Files a Revised Books Settlement Proposal

At 14 minutes to midnight last night, Google, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers filed a revised settlement agreement with a US district court in New York. Here is the blog post of Dan Clancy, Google Books engineering director. Google has provided an outline of the differences from the original settlement (PDF) and a FAQ (PDF); the full revised settlement (PDF) is also available. In brief, the changes include limiting the settlement to books published in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia; a court-appointed fiduciary to represent the rights of orphaned works' (undiscovered) rightsholders; and further opening up Google's library to competitors in ways that don't favor Google. The new plan was immediately criticized as a "sleight of hand" by the Open Book Alliance, a consortium of Google's opponents including Microsoft and Amazon. The Internet Archive said, "None of the proposed changes appear to address the fundamental flaws illuminated by the Department of Justice and other critics that impact public interest."

Comments

If I had modpoints, I'd mod you up

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi,

I don't know why anyone would think your post is flamebait. The way I see it, it's the simple truth.

Without accusing Google of having evil intentions, they _are_ very powerful, they _are_ gathering and indexing a lot of information, and this is something we need to think about.

As long as Google is collecting and indexing publicly available information, it's fair game. They are making accessible what is already out there, and that is a Good Thing.

But Google doesn't stop there. Any message that passes through them is under their control. Do you use a Gmail account? Do you ever send email to or receive email from Gmail accounts? Do you ever receive email that is also sent to a Gmail account? Congratulations, it's in the system now.

Is this a Bad Thing? I'm not saying that. But I want people to be aware that this is how it works. And keep in mind: for all the concern there is about governments collecting private information, a government only rules in its own jurisdiction, and may be democratically elected. Google is global. Does your vote count?

Sincerely,

An Anonymous Coward

Re:NO, Google is becomming the Public Domain

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I am fed to the back teeth with Luddites railing against Google for doing, systematically, what is legal, and what anyone could do.

This is precisely Google's mentality. If is is legal and possible to collect, index and offer the data, they will do it. There is no consideration of ethics or the effect on ordinary people or indeed wider society. Has Google maps been a positive force on society. Probably yes, but consider the effect on companies like TomTom. Has Google's tracking and profiling of web surfers or their digitisation of books been a positive force? Has Gmail's scanning of user emails been positive? Will they, forever more, continue to use the vast databases they have amassed for good causes?

Then Google can re-open the Library of Alexandria,

Or they can open Pandora's Box. People's entire lives, right there on the net. Or worse, for sale to the highest bidder.