Published Authors: Google wants to talk to YOU!

I'm actually doing a little advertising for Google (though they're already spending huge amounts of money getting the word out about this), though this is bound to be brought up here and discussed eventually anyway. Not sure if this is the right forum for it, but here goes.

Google wants to hear from authors as a result of the Authors Guild Vs. Google case about Google scanning every book it can find. If you are the author of a published book (especially if it's out of print - according to Google, you can make money on it just by letting them put it online, without having to find a publisher to reprint it), Google wants your permission to scan it and make it available, and pay you for it (as opposed to just scanning it and making it available regardless, as they were previously doing). There was a thread on this Google-vs-Authors-Guild case on AW last year, but I didn't find it offhand.

News story on it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/books/04google.html?_r=1
The guild site:
http://settlement.authorsguild.org/

Google's official page on the settlement:
http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/

I haven't read over much of it (not being published [yet] myself), but offhand it looks like an "opt-out" thing, so if you DON'T want Google to put your book online, you HAVE to contact them to say no.

Chumplet said:

I received a few emails about it, but I thought it was in error. I figured I would have had to sign something for them to scan my book.

If it's 'opt out', I'm concerned. My books are POD, so they're not out of print until my contract ends, right?

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As I understand it, to Google it doesn't matter if it's out of print or not, they want to scan it and make it available through their service.

Google is apparently just using the line "If your books are out of print, letting us put them on Google Books will get you income from your books without you having to do a thing!" to sell the idea and get the support of out-of-print authors. Again, from my quick (and perhaps faulty) understanding, if you don't want Google to put your book online, it doesn't matter if it's out of print or not, you still have to "opt out."

I dunno about POD. I peeked, your books have ISBNs (does that need an apostrophe? I'm wanting to write it as ISBN's), so surely Google has those ISBN's and wants your books, so I don't think them being POD matters. My impression is they want everything, but I can only wonder if that includes PA books...

Chumplet said:

You see, I don't recall uploading anything. Do they just grab it somewhere off the 'net?

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Chumplet said:

I checked Google Books and found two of my titles, but they had 'no preview available.' I guess that means I didn't give them anything. However, they do have links to Amazon and reviews for one of my books.

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I recall in recent years Google, in concert with several large colleges, did a lot of SCANNING of books, and students can access these scans over the Web (by logging into their student accounts with the college). I don't know offhand if that was a separate thing from Google Books, or if Google Books is just an extension of it.

But yes, Google has been accused of Skynet-like behavior for years.

In a larger issue, this appears to be where the Internet is taking society, you get to take others' copyrighted works, upload them and make them available (as on Youtube - there appear to be complete movies up there in 5 to 10 minute segments), and it's only taken down when the copyright holder becomes aware of it and complains. Meanwhile, many have seen it and some have downloaded it, so there are a lot of unpaid views and copies that wouldn't have existed had these Internet resources not existed. There was one big TV production company that successfully sued Youtube, and ever since, whenever one of their shows is uploaded it gets deleted very quickly.

I suppose I could research this and write a book on it (working title "The Demise of Copyright/Intellectual Property in The Internet Age"), or at least make a blog post on it.

indiriverflow said:

That's why I'm confused. I did upload the entire PDF when I submitted to Google Books. Apparently they added some PDFs which were not submitted. But Google Books sent me the e-mail about the settlement, and that's when I found out the whole thing is in preview. The TOS I agreed to arranged for sales through Google Checkout, at $5 per copy, the same price as my own site was selling it. I believe I am owed for every hit that document received. Not to be petty about it, but...

So I'm eligible for the settlement. The question is, what if some authors decide to form another class-action, based on the violation of the contract we agreed to? They've been giving away our books. They have 40 billion dollars.

Anybody think they should pay more than $60 for these books?

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It looks like they should pay you for the downloads already done regardless of whether you "opt out" of having them (continue to) make it available. That looks like a separate class-action lawsuit. I presume if you weren't part of the Authors Guild, you could start or be part of a new such lawsuit. YOU might not get much of the money you're owed if such as lawsuit is won (that appears to be the way these lawsuits go), but the attorneys will get their share. This will at least provide "justice" in punishing Google, even if it doesn't get you the money you're reasonably owed.

I'm generally not in favor of suing, but here it appears Google is definitely in the wrong, and this previous suit/agreement didn't do enough to make Google stick to the letter of the law.