Google Settlement

[Adam Hammonds]

What does everyone think of the Google settlement with publishers. Looks like they can now legally bring back millions of still-copyrighted, out of print books from the dead. Royalties for authors who thought they'd never see another dime. But a dramatic shake-up potentially for the New York houses. . .

Here's the NY Times article on it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/technology/internet/29google.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

And a little analysis (a very good read) over at the Millions:
http://www.themillionsblog.com/2008/10/google-settlement-could-change-literary.html


What are your thoughts? Make you nervous at all?

[Ken]

sounds like a win-win situation: great for authors and readers.
There's probably a hidden downside to it all, though.
There always is.

[Carmy]

I'd like to see what percentage of the 63% goes to the author. Let's face it, the publisher allowed a book to go out of print, not the author, so the publisher doesn't deserve a high percentage.

I agree with Anis, there has to be a downside for authors.

As someone said on the second link -- it's time for publishers to change. They've lorded it over us for far too long.

[BarbaraKE]

It does seem like a win-win scenario, especially for non-fiction books. I know there are several out-of-print books for which I've been looking (for research) but they're too expensive. This sounds very interesting.

I'm not sure what to think about the fiction side. From what I understand, the 'book' will be kept on your 'bookshelf' (hosted by Google) and you can read them from any internet connection. But I really can't see many people reading books on their computer.

Can they be downloaded to a reading device (such as Amazon's Kindle)?

If not, I don't see it impacting the fiction market much (unless it leads to some sort of cooperation between Amazon and Google).

If it does, I think this will heavily impact Amazon and the used book market.

One question - assuming this works, can a book ever be said to 'go out of print'? How would it affect author's rights?

[maestrowork]

If they're out of print (and possibly out of contract) why would the publishers be getting the profit? Shouldn't the authors be involved instead? The copyrights, after all, belong to the authors, not the publishers.

[SPMiller]

Seems to me publishers are the ones who have the greatest risk of getting screwed. As maestro said, rights to out-of-print books revert to the author. In the absence of updated contracts, all sales via Google from that point forward would presumably yield revenue only to the author. After all, Google went out of their way to specifically mention that money would go to the "copyright holders".

[benbradley]

Seems to me publishers are the ones who have the greatest risk of getting screwed. As maestro said, rights to out-of-print books revert to the author.
Yes, but not immediately. Surely others know these things better than I do, but I understand contracts often have publishers retain printing rights for some months or years after the last printing, or have the publishing rights for a fixed period of maybe five years, even though the book may only be in print for the first year. Is this not the usual case?

Of course, if a publisher lets the rights to a book revert to the author, the publisher didn't think the book was worth making more print copies of (which may still be true, yet money can be made from it by putting it online through Google).

[Ken]

don't know all the ins and outs of the legal stuff, but seems to me Maestro is right. An author having to split royalties from Google with a publisher after a book of theirs had gone out of print makes no more sense than if an author had to split income with a publisher on an out of print book that another book publisher subsequently picked up.

And if, as Ben points out, the publisher retained rights after the book had gone out of print, then the term should have to expire first before any further deals could be brokered in line with the reasonable interests of authors.

Legally I bet it all rests with whether Google is considered a publisher, or merely a medium, which would be a stretch.

[ishtar'sgate]

The main thing that bothered me about the whole thing was in these last couple of sentences.

Google said its decision to no longer show snippets for in-print books without permission was made simply to secure the settlement. It is not a concession of our legal position. And their legal position? Under the 'fair use' doctrine of copyright law it did not NEED permission.
This is far from over.

[Adam Hammonds]

I'm not sure what to think about the fiction side. From what I understand, the 'book' will be kept on your 'bookshelf' (hosted by Google) and you can read them from any internet connection. But I really can't see many people reading books on their computer.

This, I think, is where one can start safely predicting what G's ultimate plan is: they will build and heavily market a Google E-reader to take advantage of their new database which is, essentially, the largest used book store in the world. In addition to coaxing [forcing] publishers into making digital editions of all new books. I think it clearly opens the door for G to take over the future of electronic reading commerce.

[scope]

Although I agree with those who have posted, I have a gut feeling that writers may get screwed over. Certainly much greater clarity about the entire issue is needed.

[BarbaraKE]

Let me make sure I understand this. All books will be in one of three categories...

1) For books that are still in print, Google will show only 'previews', provides links to buy the book, and the publishers/authors will share in any revenue stream from ads.
2) For book in the public domain, Google will provide the whole thing (and it keeps any money involved).

Both of these seems good, right?

It's the third category where things get tricky...

3) Out-of-print books that are still under copyright - Google will provide electronic copies of these. 63% of the revenue (plus the same percentage of any ad revenue) will go to the publishers/authors.

I have several thoughts on this...

1) If the books are OOP, don't the rights (usually) revert to the author so why should the publisher get anything?
2) On the other hand, I can understand that Google would find it impossible to deal with thousands (millions?) of individual authors so they'd probably prefer to deal with the publishers and let the publishers have the responsibility of getting their money to the authors. But that's basically just a bookkeeping function and the publishers shouldn't get a whole lot of money for this.
3) Books that are OOP currently provide no revenue to either publisher or author. Some money (from Google) is better than no money.
4) This might severely hurt used book dealers (and Amazon since they have a hefty used-book market).

Overall, I think this is good, my only concern is the split between the authors and publishers. Since the publishers are taking no risk and are basically just providing a bookkeeping function, the split should be heavily in favor of the authors.

Any thoughts??

[tehuti88]

I admit I haven't read the article so I'm puzzled by the replies--of the out-of-print books that Google plans to offer, how is money made for the writer on those? Are they going to be offered for free through Google Books or will users have to pay a fee to view them online?

I guess I just fail to see how the writer could be offered money if the book is free to view in its entirety, so it seems there'd be a fee involved.

Sorry I'm so naive.

[MumblingSage]

I believe they will be providing snippets of the out-of-print books, and you have to pay for the whole thing--sort of as if they were reprinting the volumes as e-books. That would make sense to me, at least. But that certainly wouldn't mean I'm not wrong.