Gillian Spraggs (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} wolfinthewood) wrote,@ 2009-07-20 00:58:00 |
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Google Book Settlement: Some Clarifications
It has occurred to me, several days in, that some further clarification of my purpose in these posts is probably in order.
Back in May, when I realised what was being proposed under the Settlement, and also that several of my own works had been digitised by Google, I needed to know more about what this meant. In the UK, the advice on offer to authors seemed to be along the lines of ‘Google is handing out money, run along and register soonest.’ I couldn’t find anything in the way of a proper analysis of the pros and cons of the proposed Settlement, either for the individual author or in relation to the future direction of literary culture. This was in contrast to the US, where a lively, and in my opinion healthy, debate was in progress. However, the interests of US writers and scholars in this matter are not necessarily identical to the interests of Europeans: as a number of US commentators have acknowledged.
I am not a lawyer (the traditional disclaimer). I am a scholar, with a scholar’s instincts: research and analyse. I set out to investigate the Settlement.
What I found out disturbed me very much, as a reader and scholar as well as an author. It was a fairly demanding task, researching the Settlement, even for a trained scholar with good web skills, and that troubled me too. What is being proposed is in its nature complicated; the documents setting it out are not always easy to follow; and it is harder still to work out all the implications. I owe a great deal to several US legal experts who have given their views on the Settlement in papers and podcasts. A number of other perceptive commentators, writing or speaking from within the spheres of writing, publishing and librarianship, have also offered me much to think about.
I am not aiming in these posts to give advice to authors or rights-holders about what action they should take. My purpose is to explain why the Settlement is, as I see it, highly problematic: focusing primarily on how it bears on non-US rights-holders.
This said, I shall point out the obvious, which is that whatever they intend to do, it would be sensible at this point for authors and the executors of authors’ estates to dig out their old contracts, and if there are any reversion clauses that they should have formally invoked, and haven’t, this seems like a good time to do that.
Under the provisions of the Settlement, those who do not plan to opt out (which must be done by 4 September) have until 5 January 2010 to put in a claim for a share of the money which Google Inc. is offering to rights-holders whose work was digitised without their permission on or before 5 May 2009.
[http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/Fi
Rights-holders who neither opt out nor put in a claim by 5 January may register their works with the Book Rights Registry at a later date, but will not be recompensed for the digitisation.
[http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/in
Rights-holders who do not opt out of the Settlement may still arrange to have their books removed from Google’s database, but only if they fill in the claim form for them on or before 5 April 2011. After that date, Google will only exclude their books from the database if they have not already been digitised.
[http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/in
It may be noted here that this implies that Google plans to continue digitising works belonging to rights-holders defined as Settlement Class Members into the coming years. Within the terms of the Settlement it can only digitise works published on or before 5 January 2009. Rights-holders of works that are scanned after 5 May 2009 will not be recompensed for having those works digitised. (Of course, dependent on their instructions to the Registry, they would be eligible for a share of any income flowing from advertising, institutional subscriptions, etc.)
It has occurred to me, several days in, that some further clarification of my purpose in these posts is probably in order.
Back in May, when I realised what was being proposed under the Settlement, and also that several of my own works had been digitised by Google, I needed to know more about what this meant. In the UK, the advice on offer to authors seemed to be along the lines of ‘Google is handing out money, run along and register soonest.’ I couldn’t find anything in the way of a proper analysis of the pros and cons of the proposed Settlement, either for the individual author or in relation to the future direction of literary culture. This was in contrast to the US, where a lively, and in my opinion healthy, debate was in progress. However, the interests of US writers and scholars in this matter are not necessarily identical to the interests of Europeans: as a number of US commentators have acknowledged.
I am not a lawyer (the traditional disclaimer). I am a scholar, with a scholar’s instincts: research and analyse. I set out to investigate the Settlement.
What I found out disturbed me very much, as a reader and scholar as well as an author. It was a fairly demanding task, researching the Settlement, even for a trained scholar with good web skills, and that troubled me too. What is being proposed is in its nature complicated; the documents setting it out are not always easy to follow; and it is harder still to work out all the implications. I owe a great deal to several US legal experts who have given their views on the Settlement in papers and podcasts. A number of other perceptive commentators, writing or speaking from within the spheres of writing, publishing and librarianship, have also offered me much to think about.
I am not aiming in these posts to give advice to authors or rights-holders about what action they should take. My purpose is to explain why the Settlement is, as I see it, highly problematic: focusing primarily on how it bears on non-US rights-holders.
This said, I shall point out the obvious, which is that whatever they intend to do, it would be sensible at this point for authors and the executors of authors’ estates to dig out their old contracts, and if there are any reversion clauses that they should have formally invoked, and haven’t, this seems like a good time to do that.
Under the provisions of the Settlement, those who do not plan to opt out (which must be done by 4 September) have until 5 January 2010 to put in a claim for a share of the money which Google Inc. is offering to rights-holders whose work was digitised without their permission on or before 5 May 2009.
[http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/Fi
Rights-holders who neither opt out nor put in a claim by 5 January may register their works with the Book Rights Registry at a later date, but will not be recompensed for the digitisation.
[http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/in
Rights-holders who do not opt out of the Settlement may still arrange to have their books removed from Google’s database, but only if they fill in the claim form for them on or before 5 April 2011. After that date, Google will only exclude their books from the database if they have not already been digitised.
[http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/in
It may be noted here that this implies that Google plans to continue digitising works belonging to rights-holders defined as Settlement Class Members into the coming years. Within the terms of the Settlement it can only digitise works published on or before 5 January 2009. Rights-holders of works that are scanned after 5 May 2009 will not be recompensed for having those works digitised. (Of course, dependent on their instructions to the Registry, they would be eligible for a share of any income flowing from advertising, institutional subscriptions, etc.)
