Revised Google Books Deal Draws Fire

January 29, 2010 By Geoff Duncan

Google has revised its propose Google Books settlement, but most folks who opposed the original - like Amazon - aren't any happier with the new one.

Last November, Internet giant Google offered a new version of its Google Books settlement agreement, which (if approved) would enable the company to create an enormous digital library and bookstore—including copyrighted works for which Google has not secured permissions. The court set a January 28 deadline for parties to file objections the preliminary settlement, and critics have lined up to slam Google’s plans, with many claiming the deal could easily give Google a monopoly on digital versions of a vast number of books.

Under the original deal, Google would have had exclusive rights to the digital versions of a vast number of so-called “orphan” books, which are typically out-of-print books for whom the real rights holders are either unknown or have been found. A large number of these works are from foreign authors. However, members of the Open Book Alliance—originally formed to oppose Google’s plans—still object to the proposed settlement.

In a new filing to the court, Amazon.com warns that the settlement “continues to give Google exclusive rights likely to lead to a monopoly,” enabling Google to not only control pricing, selection, and the process of reading books, but also control who is permitted to act as a reseller and dictate resellers cuts on sales. The Internet Archive, which has opposed the Google Books deal since day one, continues to voice opposition, saying the revised deal does nothing to mitigate concerns over the original; instead, the revised deal offers “minor amendments that still allow [Google] to manipulate class procedures to seize rights that copyright law as secured to others.”

However, some critics of the original proposal have come out in favor of the amended deal, including the Canadian Publishers Council and the UK’s Society of Authors. Google maintains that the Google Books project would benefit the broader public by providing vastly improved access to millions of out-of-print books.

The judge in the case plans hold a hearing on the fairness of the revised settlement agreement on February 18.

Showing 6 comments

job514 at 3:07pm 11th February 2010 You are correct that this will give them exclusive rights to orphan books.... My point above is that, this settle is the only recourse they can take because of the way copyright law is structured. Copyright gives it's "holder" the rights to its work for something like 90 years *after* the death of an author. That in and of itself is baffling... but what happens when that person dies and there is no one to tend to the distribution of that work. Answer, it disappears on library shelves hundreds of miles from where I live. The worst of it, I can't even buy it if I wanted to. Google would give me the opportunity to buy that work and then the money would be set aside until the copyright holder is found (a whole other topic). Why can't other company's do this? Because copyright law prevents them from doing so. Try to get international copyright changed if you believe in the efficiency of our government legislators. In fact they did try to beforehand... as did many groups. It will take a settlement like this to change the way people think about orphan works and their status. Other companies can choose to go through this same process of settlement if they too want the same rights. Google has spent tens of millions of dollars (if not hundreds) and vast amounts of brain power to make this work and it's being held up all so that lawyers and groups like Amazon and Microsoft (who had a book project then gave it up and is now trying to pretend to be the nice guy) can profit from it. So far Google's products have served me well and I think that most people would agree. I give them two thumbs up.
otakucode at 5:06pm 2nd February 2010 See my reply above. I'm not sure how people are misunderstanding this, but Google is seeking EXCLUSIVE rights to these works. That means they want to make it illegal for anyone other than Google to digitally archive these works, and they want it to be illegal for anyone else to sell them.

Google's motto is "Don't do evil" but they do evil very regularly. They cooperate in censoring at the behest of oppressive regimes. They are presently the worlds largest censor, exercising a great deal of control over our culture and preventing certain ideas from ever being heard in the public arena (what if society decided to shrug off the ridiculous taboos against nudity? We would never even know if this was the desire of most people because Google would ban their videos, shut down their blogs, block them from search results, etc.). In addition, their advertising policies are patently unethical. They only pay people based upon ad clicks - which means they get almost ALL of the benefits of advertising (brand recognition, word of mouth, etc) without compensating the people running the ads. Whether a group is or is not evil depends entirely on their actions, and not a whit on what they SAY they believe. And Google only avoids doing evil when doing evil is not financially incentivized. If there's good money to be made, Google steps up and acts without much thought.
otakucode at 5:01pm 2nd February 2010 What're you talking about? The entire objection is based on the fact that Google is trying to take EXCLUSIVE rights to these works.

Directly from the article: Google would have had exclusive rights to the digital versions of a vast number of so-called “orphan” books

And about the 'new' proposal: In a new filing to the court, Amazon.com warns that the settlement “continues to give Google exclusive rights likely to lead to a monopoly,” enabling Google to not only control pricing, selection, and the process of reading books, but also control who is permitted to act as a reseller and dictate resellers cuts on sales.

Google is not just making a digital archive. They are trying to make it illegal for anyone else to make a digital archive and sell these books. That's the entire point of the objections to it.
Fashion Boutique at 5:58pm 1st February 2010 Google's motto is "Don't be evil". They just want to digitize so that future generations can know about those orphan books. If this is not allowed, then future generations may not know about those orphan books at all.
job514 at 5:25pm 31st January 2010 Google isn't getting exclusive ownership of orphaned books because of this lawsuit. They won't own those works. They will simply make them available in digital copies until the rightful owner can be found. The system is opt out because they are called orphan works exactly because the copy rightowners cannot be found or are dead. Any money made from the transactions (thru ads or sale) are set aside for that owner to reclaim. The copyright system is at fault here. Don't try to make Google the wipping boy. They have tried to get copyright law changed as well as the Internet Archive... but it wasn't happening because of the bureaucratic mess it takes to change such a behemoth. Don't blame google for trying to keep the ball rolling.
otakucode at 9:19pm 29th January 2010 This is absolutely absurd. If Google were fighting for the right to ANYONE to be able to sell orphaned works, it would almost make sense. But for them to step up and simply say "We want to be able to take complete exclusive ownership of all orphaned works" is insane. These books should be placed into the public domain. What argument could Google possibly have that would justify them receiving any sort of exclusive rights to any of these works?

Keep in mind, also, that Google is currently the largest censor on the planet. They restrict content, edit content, and remove content at their petty whim. Censorship was accepted only grudgingly in the case of publicly-owned airwaves for radio and television on an argument that the general public supported suppressing certain ideas and, since the airwaves were the property of the public, they ought be allowed to have some say over how they are used. The Internet, however, is an ENTIRELY different story. The Internet does not transact over any publicly-owned medium. The Internet is a 'pull' technology, and every consumer of it has the ability to control what they or their children access. The idea that any content can be "harmful" is completely without any basis in science whatsoever, so there is no reasonable justification for any government to step in and prevent people from choosing to partake in online content. Google knows this and actively censors all of their sites which claim to be "public" and "open" places to post content in order to control culture. Culture is supposed to represent society overall. When Google steps in and bans certain content by fiat, they are attempting to control culture. What if, for example, our culture wished to do away with the taboo against nudity, realizing that it does tremendous damage to peoples body image and gives them neuroses about their body? We may never know if this is what our society wants, because Google will refuse to allow it to happen.

What books will we be banned from seeing by the heavy hand of the Google censors? Which will be edited for our "protection"? It is far more dangerous to hand these works over to such an active and unashamed censor than any content ever could be.

(If you believe that the nudity taboo should be retained, please substitute any other concept you wish. Google also censors works of a religious and political nature when a tiny minority complain. They enforce the status quo with a stranglehold. Even if you approve of the status quo today, are you comfortable with allowing them to decide what the status quo will be tomorrow and preventing you from advocating for whatever beliefs you have?)