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As a result, Google amended its Book Settlement agreement, but now the U.S. Department of Justice is taking Google to court on the grounds that this amended settlement isn't good enough, that it thwarts competition in the book market and undermines copyright law. Google, of course, has rebutted the DOJ's objections to its digital book deal. Oral arguments were scheduled to begin yesterday in a New York court hearing. (France has already sued Google on these grounds and won its lawsuit, so this will be interesting to say the least.)
FOR MORE INFORMATION
US Department of Justice opposes revised Google book deal
http://tinyurl.com/yjzhodp (France 24 International News)
Justice Dept. Criticizes Latest Google Book Deal
http://tinyurl.com/yf49fvu (New York Times)
Google rebuts DOJ objections to digital book deal
http://tinyurl.com/yhnscqa (Google)
My Chat with Google's Book Settlement Dept.
By Barbara Brabec, www.barbarabrabec.com
On the advice of my literary agent, I decided to opt out (remove all editions of all of my books) from the Google Book Settlement program in an effort to prevent them from digitizing any of my work, especially out-of-print old trade editions and two self-published titles that have been out of print for years. My agent submitted my list of all titles to Google, and they sent a confirmation by SNAIL MAIL confirming that "all books have been removed," but this document did NOT list the titles in the message. (This, my agent suggested, automatically gave them a big legal loophole in case a book "accidentally" got digitized.) So I called the number included in that letter and spoke to a fellow there about this problem, saying I wanted an email confirmation listing all the book titles that had been removed from Google's database. It arrived the next day. (If you are an author who has opted out, make sure you also get a confirmation that specifically lists titles in question.)
You might find my conversation with the Google Book Settlement representative of some interest. First, I asked this person about the new book I'll be self-publishing this spring, wondering if there was anything I needed to do to protect my digital rights to it.
I was told that books published after January 5, 2009 weren’t covered by the settlement, and for all books after that, "Google would have the same rights they have always had."
"But they have violated author’s rights in the past, so are they going to keep on doing that?" I asked. At that point, the Google representative began to speak with hesitance, finally saying, "You can’t sue Google until/unless it infringes your copyright."
"So," I said, "are you saying that I just have to wait and SEE if they infringe my rights?"
He stumbled quite a bit here, saying that commenting on this topic wasn't related to the settlement, and he couldn't be of any help to me. I'm sure I'm not the only author, agent, or publisher who is wondering about the status of their new books. I figure this can only get messier in the future. If Google happens to win the DOJ battle, it would essentially grant them a monopoly over millions of "orphan works," which technically means books whose right holders are unknown or cannot be found. But Google has apparently already digitized many books that are still in print, whose authors CAN be found and whose books are certainly not "orphans" by any stretch of the imagination. My agent's advice was to file a notice to opt out for any new book I publish, just to be safe. But she added, "My cynical nature is coming out when I say I suspect that sending in notices to opt out or to claim books just alerts them to more books to scan. I think they are doing it regardless of our filing."
I think she’s right. On its "Google Book Settlement" explanatory page, one question asks, "What is Google authorized to do under the Amended Settlement" (which is what the DOJ is currently fighting in court). The answer is that, "Under the Amended Settlement, Rights holders authorize Google, on a non-exclusive basis, to:
- Continue to digitize books and Inserts;
- Sell subscriptions to an electronic books database to institutions;
- Sell online access to individual books;
- Sell advertising on pages from books;
- Display portions of book in a "preview" format to encourage sales of online
access to books;
- Display snippets from books; and
- Display bibliographic information from books."
Source: http://tinyurl.com/ykevpce
If an author wants to give away some book content on the book's companion website or on Amazon where the author can profit from a sale of the book, that's one thing. I'll be offering a free sample of my new book's content when its published, but I want that content to be of MY choosing – not Google's. It really upsets me to know that we can't prevent Google from grabbing a chunk of content from one of our books and showing it as a preview so it can make money by selling online access to our books.
My agent, by the way, is Barbara Doyen, and she has a remarkable website loaded with articles of interest to every writer and author, including a collection of articles on "Author Rights" (copyright, electronic media rights, foreign and serial rights, etc.). Visit www.barbaradoyen.com
Copyright 2010 by Barbara Brabec. Reprinted by permission from 2/19/10 issue of The Brabec Bulletin. The author of several home-business trade books that have been in print for up to thirty years, Barbara has recently completed her first memoir, which she will self-publish this spring. She also critiques and edits book manuscripts for writers who are planning to self-publish. Join her mailing list to receive the free Bulletin, and visit her website at www.BarbaraBrabec.com for other writing/publishing articles she has written.
Read Barbara Brabec's biography on our resources page.
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