EU seeks opinions on Google Books
European Union regulators want publishers and authors to weigh in on copyright issues with Google's book scanning and book search project, according to the Associated Press.
European Commission officials will meet with copyright holders on September 7 to discuss the search giant's $125 million proposed settlement with U.S. publishers and authors granting Google the right to digitize and publish books that are out of print but still protected by copyright law. The court overseeing the settlement has given authors a September 4 deadline to opt out individually if they don't not wish to participate. Google has negotiated many deals with some publishers for current works and is also digitizing public-domain works.
Critics complain that the deal, which is scheduled to be implemented in October, would effectively give Google a monopoly over books that are in copyright but out of print. Google argues that the agreement will make millions of books hidden on library shelves more accessible and give publishers and authors a new opportunity to profit from them.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice said it was launching a formal investigation into the proposed settlement.
A Google spokesperson told CNET News that the company will be at the EC meeting.
"What's currently planned is a fact-finding exercise by the Commission--not an investigation--and we're looking forward to taking part," the spokesperson said in an e-mail. "We agree with European Commissioner, Viviane Reding, when she said, "We should create a modern set of European rules that encourage the digitization of books."
Update 4:50 p.m. PDT: The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee also is considering a look at the matter, citing unknown people with whom the committee discussed its plans and a Google spokesman quoted as saying, "there's interest in having a hearing to explore the settlement."
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service, and the Associated Press. E-mail Elinor. 
if you are not gonna let ur customers have access to it (aka buying) then be nice and let the ppl have a way of accessing the information. books are becoming less and less like a way to pass on knowledge and instead turning more into a way to show human greed =.=
i say this to all copy righted stuff, if u are not going to make more copies when they have evaporated of the store shelves then let the ppl who are willing to make it freely available to others do it.
Who are you to decide for others? THIS IS THE USA. We respect (or we USED to) the private property of others.
what im saying is for certain things it should be copy righted for a certain amount of years then let become public so the human race can continue to advance (pointing to educational/research material) and as for musics it really become counter productive if the guy still has to rely on that same music after 50 years product income.
what im saying is many of the copy righted material should have a date when it is "declassified" ie. 20 years may be. this is different from physical property, and copy right should not be held indefinitely that just creates more ppl that takes up sueing ppl as a career. at least i still think the american's sue them when ever u get the chance mentality is where all the chaos is coming from.
hell, im still a big supporter for copyright law, but i think it is flawed in many way. i have not pirated anything since i finished high school 7 years ago. and i actively "nag" ppl around me to use a genuine copy. but that does not mean im gonna be a zombie and just do everything someones else makes into a law and never think about if there is something wrong with it.
hell if everyone did that, there will still be slaves in usa. (btw ur username really shows how sad u are)
If the rights holders are so loath to let Google scan and then publish the books for searching - and displaying partial results and/or giving the people an opportunity to purchase and download it - then the universal copyright laws that ALL nations have signed (The Berne Commission) should have a new clause inserted that Google (or any other company that intends to do the same) will notify the copyright holder that it intends to scan those books out of print - and if the owner objects THE OWNER must then publish a new run of that book worldwide (10,000 minimum copies) within 6 months and advertise that it is now available again to all the nations (and people) who are part of the copyright treaty- and Google does not get to scan it. If they refuse to publish it - then Google gets to scan it..
If they are SO worried about losing money - then they need to publish it again and make that money. If they refuse to publish - then it shows that the book is really "economically worthless" and it should be in the public domain - or at least parts of it accessible via a public method.
In most cases of items published now, the wait before they get into the public domain could be 140 years or more after they are created!
Tom Philo
http://www.taphilo.com
Write your own book and then give it away. You seem to have lots to say.
i follow similar lines of thought as u
@cnet_really_sucks
the one that is greedy is urself, everything is me, me, me
Note the "argues." Google knows those arguments are solely for outside consumption and assumes that many of those it intends to seduce are utterly clueless about what the new technology means. It's not even that hard to see through what they're saying.
When I was in college during the 1960s, it made sense to say that books were "hidden" in libraries. We had to go to a library and search through 3x5 cards to find out what books were in the collection, with no hint as to whether that book was actually on the shelves. Now WorldCat will search virtually every major library system on the planet and tell me where I can get a book ranked by distance. In Seattle, not exactly the book capital of the world, only rarely do I find a book that's more than a 15 minute drive away. And when it isn't nearby, within seconds I can locate a used copy from thousands of used books stores or get a copy within a couple of weeks via interlibrary loan. I remain utterly amazed by what librarians can find. Yale had no problem loaning me a book so rare, only two copies exist in all the research libraries in the world.
No, books aren't hidden. Google knows that. Never have books been more visible and readily available. It's the aging, baby-boom techno-twits in the publishing industry, dinosaurs lingering on from the age of the IBM 360 mainframe, who don't understand what the new technology means. And it's they that Google intends to exploit.
I know because for almost a decade I've been doing what these industry execs think Google will help them to do, bring back old books. I mostly publish enhanced editions of public domain texts from writers such as the gifted G. K. Chesterton. Google's scheme distorts class action law to render most out of print books published anywhere in the world since 1922 into a quasi-public domain status in the U.S., although just for them. Copyright holders who do not formally opt-out of a complex 300-plus page agreement are automatically opted in on September 4 and lose their ability to sue Google. Like a lot of things Google does, it's clever but unethical.
Sadly, the vast majority of out-of-print titles that Google will be displaying are out-of-print for good reason. No one is going to make money publishing them. I know. I've published some losers. Only the best are viable and even then it takes work recreate them for a modern audience. I edited and published the second bestselling book on eugenics on Amazon. It sells because Michael Crichton praised my edition in his last book. I'm now hoping the same happens with my collection of Chesterton's prophetic warnings of Germany's threat to the peace of Europe. Martin Gilbert, Churchill's official biographer, praised it in a letter to me. If he praises it in print, it will sell like hot cakes. If not, I'm outta luck.
Old books sell because people we respect recommend them. That's a fact of life. My edition of Eugenics and Other Evils sat for some five years in the Google's Partners program, fully searchable but with only so-so sales. Sales only took off when Michael Crichton praised it. He's right. It's brilliantly argued and humorously written, as even Chesterton's foes admitted, and my additions make it accessible to modern readers. But no one using Google Book Search would know that. Google, clueless about books, ranks my edition at #78, near the bottom of the eighth page. And that's happening while Google's collection is relatively small. If their ambitions are successful, any particular book will be buried beneath millions others. Any author or publisher who thinks they'll benefit from that is naive.
Last of all, Google understands the market in ways these aging publishers do not. The generation now passing through college is focused on getting books online and for free. Unless a book is particularly interesting and especially relevant, they won't buy a print version. They'll simply get along with what Google gives them for free. In most cases, the limited demand that Google Book Search will create will be met by used copies. Why buy a cheap reproduction when you can have an original for less with just a few seconds searching online? I like to think that I improve books enough to make them worth buying, as some readers have told me. But most publishers have neither the time nor the interest in doing that.
If this settlement gets approved, within a couple of years most mainstream publishers will wake up and discover that they've given Google exclusive use of the world's largest backlist and gotten almost nothing in return. Then it will be too late, and given the current sad state of publishing, there's no room for mistakes on this scale.
--Michael W. Perry, Seattle
Welcome to Google owning you. Welcome to the freaking iPod generation handing out trophies to all the kiddies, even the losers. Wake up and spill your koolaid already.
This is the end of everything that took 200 years to create. Goodbye freedom, we hardly knew ya.
Welcome to Google owning you. Welcome to the freaking iPod generation handing out trophies to all the kiddies, even the losers. Wake up and spill your koolaid already.
This is the end of everything that took 200 years to create. Goodbye freedom, we hardly knew ya.
- by mupptasstic July 21, 2009 1:05 PM PDT
- The EU and most Obama supporters and voters, are plain and true, socialists."
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(15 Comments)LOL, socialists in the EU, the largest grouping in the EU parliament are conservatives and right wingers, we have parties here that would make the most pro business dyed in the wool Republican, look like a tree hugging hippy at woodstock.