Bragging Rights

Some time back I did a blog post about the controversial and eventually overturned settlement between Google, the Authors Guild, the major publishers and others about the Google project to scan zillions of books and make them available.

Read that post here.  http://brilligblogger.blogspot.com/2009/04/google-settlement.html

This week, the major publishers settled their case with Google, you can read the Google press release about that settlement here. http://googlepress.blogspot.com/2012/10/publishers-and-google-reach-agreement.html

Just to say, I called this one.

The main part of the settlement here is that the publishers get Google's file for their use.

Which is exactly what I said was missing from the larger agreement.

If they had done that same thing three years ago for the broad settlement, our ebook program would have long ago had a lot more books, our clients would have been making a lot more money all along the way.  Instead, the Authors Guikd is still spending how much money on who knows what in the case, while the publishers and Google have now recognized where the fairness is.  Let Google do what it wants in search, so long as it lets you do what you want to sell your book.

The Google Settlement

Many of you have maybe read about the Google settlement.  In the "better to beg forgiveness than ask permission" kind of way, Google went to many big college libraries, got their OK to start digitizing their entire collections, and then the publishers and authors go to Google and say maybe you should have spoken to us before you started to do this.  The upshot is that Google has already scanned the books and the settlement would allow Google to do pretty much as it pleases with them with authors having the right to opt out and with Google forking over around 2/3 of the money it gets to publishers and/or authors as the case may be for the money it makes.  Some people have objected to this very strongly.  In order to determine who gets the money, the masters of the Book Registry the settlement establishes may have to look at contracts to see who has electronic rights, so it starts up a new Big Brother with rights to peer into all of our agreements.  The court sets Google up with a monopoly that will last forever.  I'm not as opposed to this as that.  Many countries have things like photocopying funds or lending library money where a library might chip in 3 cents every time a book circulates and then maybe you get $62.89 based on random sampling of library loaning records.  It's money that shows up more easily that way than if every author in Canada has to go after it himself.  Here in the US, we have the courts do what the other branches of government won't with heavy private sector involvement.  It works for me to do it that way.  But my big quibble is that if Google's gone to all this bother to scan my old out of print book from 1972, wouldn't it be nice for them just to give me a copy of it?  So that I don't as an individual author have to butcher my only copy left at considerable personal expense to have for my own book what Google already took the liberty of taking for itself?  The Book Registry big brother might still have to look to see that the rights were reverted to my 1972 book or if I or the publisher have electronic rights under the 1970 contract for my unreverted 1972 book, but at least I have a copy to do with as I please.  This greatly reduces but does not eliminate the objections about the government-sponsored monopoly.  So I did up my letter to suggest this today.  Some powerful estates like Steinbeck and PKDick have banded together and gotten 4 more months from an original May 5 deadline to object or opt out of the settlement, which is a good thing.  If you have a stake in this and want to use some of my language to communicate yourself, you need to send mail to the address below with e-mail copy to the attorneys for Google, the publishers and the authors at the e-mail addy bookclaims@bonizack.com bookclaims@debevoise.com bookclaims@kvn.com.  This as I said is my opinion, and a lot of people hate this settlement vehemently and a lot think it's just fine; the Author's Guild and the Association of American Publisher were the main parties sitting down with Google to hammer this out.

Office of the Clerk

J. Michael McMahon

US District Court for the Southern District of New York

500 Pearl St.

New York, NY  10007

re: Google Book Settlement

Dear Sir:

I am a literary agent with 23 years experience.   The Google Book Settlement will effect virtually all of my clients.

I feel very strongly that the 3.11 Hosted Version for Rightsholders aspect of the Settlement is insufficient, and that Google should also be obliged upon request to provide any Author covered under the Settlement with an electronic version of their work in Word, RTF, PDF or similar common format.

It is very difficult for authors, on an individual basis, to duplicate Google’s efforts in scanning and digitizing these works.  Since Google has already done so with the expectation of benefit to it, which benefit is enshrined in the entirety of the Settlement, these individual authors should not have to duplicate that effort or be entirely dependent on Google’s hosted version in order to gain benefit from the digitization of their work.  This could benefit the authors even in ways that do not compete with Google Book Search.  As an example, it might become easier for authors to market translation rights to their work if they could provide copies electronically for submission and translation instead of having to buy copies (in some instances expensive used copies of older books) which must then be mailed physically at great expense.  If certain fixed costs like typesetting can be reduced, it may make it easier for both publishers and authors to bring more books back into print.

Were this additional requirement added to the Settlement, it would offer clear benefits to the Author Sub-Class and possible benefit to the Publisher Sub-Class without harming Google in a substantial way.  The Settlement would still give court imprimatur to a large, already existing database of digitized work under Google’s control with global terms regarding the use of the database and payment for those usages.  As such, any possible competitor still faces significant barriers of entry in having to go author-by-author in order to compete with what the Settlement would establish.  In undercutting some of the objections that have been made to the Settlement, it would increase acceptance from all stakeholders, and this would ultimately benefit Google and every party to the Settlement.  It would make it seem just a little less like the courts are establishing a Google monopoly now and forever, which is a common thread in many objections I’ve read about to the Settlement.  As such, I urge that 3.11 be broadened to provide Authors with an actual electronic copy of their work and not just a Hosted Version.

cc:  bookclaims@bonizack.com bookclaims@debevoise.com bookclaims@kvn.com