DOJ Shoots Holes Though Google Book Settlement

If any one business dealing represented the potential to reshape media, it’s the Google Books class action settlement. The agreement has received some heavy criticism, though, clearly, the publishers and the one professional writers’ group, the Authors Guild, involved in the negotiations seem to support it. (Usual caveat: I’m a book author who opted out of the settlement, which suggests that I see flaws, at least as to how it could affect me.) But now the Department of Justice filed a last minute memo in the case, and it gives a strong view of the problems the DOJ sees and the difficulty facing Google and its would-be publishing partners.

For the rest of the post (on BNET), click here.

Round-Up of Google Book Settlement Criticism

The Department of Justice is showing increasing interest in the settlement between Google, book publishers, and the Authors Guild. And the way debate is shaping up in the publishing community, what had seemed a PR stroke of genius for Google — make use of copyrighted material, wait to get sued, settle, and seem like a hero — seems more likely to turn into an expensive and messy public black eye.

At BNET Media, I have a short summary of the issues.

Supreme Court to Hear Electronic Database Appeal

Those of you who have followed the trials and tribulations of the electronic database class action filed years ago by ASJA, the Authors Guild, and NWU may remember that the last news was that settlement objectors had been successful and a court had tossed the agreement as it stood. Each side had its points, and I'm not going to rehash them here (other than to note that my reluctance about the objection was not on principle but on pragmatism and what I feared it might effectively do). Now the Supreme Court is hearing an appeal on whether unregistered works can be part of the agreement.

It's pretty rare for the Court to take up any issue, but figure that their interest is not in freelance writers or publishers so much as clarifying issues of copyright or of class actions. The issue is whether those with unregistered works can sue, because under U.S. copyright law, you must have registered a work (even if after an infringement) to bring a legal action. At the same time, a contract is actually a form of private law. Because the lead plaintiffs had registered copyright, their suit was legal. So do the non-registered, who technically may not have had the right to sue, get bumped? Does the whole settlement go out the window? Or is a settlement agreed to by both parties acceptable? It certainly will be interesting to watch - I'm ready to sit down for oral arguments with a bowl of popcorn.

Check Google Books for Your Out of Print Titles

As you probably remember, Google settled the lawsuit brought by the Authors Guild and some publishers over Google Books, which displays up to 20% of the contents of out of print books online. Now you can sign up. Some notes:

• To be eligible, your work must be in their system.


• A full book gets you $60 plus the majority of revenue from ads placed around the display of the book.


• An "insert" gets paid only part of a fee. The definition of an insert is "any text and other material, such as forewords, essays, poems, quotations, letters, song lyrics, children’s Book illustrations, sheet music, charts, and graphs, if independently protected by U.S. copyright, contained in a Book, a government work or a public domain book published on or before January 5, 2009 and, if U.S. works, registered (alone or as part of another work) with the U.S. Copyright Office. Inserts do not include pictorial content (except for children’s Book illustrations), or any public domain or government works."


• If you want, you can also opt out of the settlement or file an objection or indicate that you plan to be at the fairness hearing, but you'd have to do it by May 5, 2009.


• Claims have to be filed by January 5, 2010.

Time to go check for your name and what might be up on the system. I just found out that the ASJA Guide to Freelance Writing, for which I suuppled the business planning chapter when I was still a member of the organization, is on there, so I'll be filing my claim, after thoroughly reviewing the settlement itself.

But if you do plan to get your little chunk of change, check the dates - if interested parties can file objections by May 5, there is the possibility that the settlement could be challenged. In any case, clearly no one is going to see any money until some time next year at the soonest.

Big Landmine in Google Agreement

The New York Times ran a story about how the settlement among Google, publishers, and the Authors Guild of the class action suit over scanning and indexing copyrighted books includes the ability to sell e-book versions of out-of-print titles. There is a huge problem here: publishers generally have no rights to books that went out-of-print. For a full explanation, please see my blog at BNET, where I just posted at length about the issue. I'm no lawyer, but I see the potential of another blow-up should some class members object - and I can see how many might object. Heck, I might add my name to an objection this time. I think the potential for this to become another debacle as happened with the class action lawsuit over magazine articles in databases is pretty strong.