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.

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.