Open Book Alliance to oppose Google Book deal

With less than two weeks remaining until a key deadline in the Google Books settlement, Google's opposition is circling the wagons.

The Open Book Alliance, a consortium that includes nonprofit author groups, library institutions, and Google rivals Amazon, Microsoft, and Yahoo, launched Wednesday to "insist that any mass book digitization and distribution effort be open and competitive." As reported last week by the Wall Street Journal, the group will be led by Peter Brantley of Internet Archive and veteran antitrust lawyer Gary Reback of Carr & Ferrell.

Google's proposed settlement with book rights holders last October gave it the sole legal authority to scan and distribute digital books that are still in copyright but out of print, and library groups and privacy activists have been up in arms ever since.

Some object to the unchecked publishing power granted to a single corporation, some are concerned that rights holders are not getting a fair shake under the deal, and some just don't like Google. On the other hand, there are some rights holders who are excited by the idea of gaining recognition and perhaps revenue for books long out of print.

Book rights holders have until next Friday, September 4, to decide if they want to opt out of the proposed settlement and prevent their books from being displayed in Google Book Search. The U.S. Department of Justice is also looking into the Google Books settlement to determine if "anticompetitive practices" were used in the formulation of the settlement.

That's perhaps where Reback comes in. Reback was instrumental in the DOJ's prosecution of Microsoft in the 1990s, and also attempted to argue an antitrust case by representing Peoplesoft against an eventually successful takeover bid from Oracle. He did not immediately return a call seeking comment on the Open Book Alliance.

[kgsbca]

Earlier articles on this story said Google was to get a non-exclusive right to scan books and sell electronic versions. This article says the agreement "with book rights holders last October gave it the sole legal authority to scan and distribute digital books that are still in copyright but out of print" Which one is correct?

If Google has sole legal right to scan books, then the opponents are correct. If they have a non-exclusive license, then their opponents are full of $hit. Can someone clear this up?

[Tom Krazit]

There are a few things going on here.

Anybody can cut a deal with rights holders to scan and sell in-print, in-copyright books. Likewise, anybody can scan public domain works.

But anybody who wants to scan these "orphan works," or books that are still under copyright protection but have gone out of print, or whose rights holders can't be located, will either have to get the U.S. laws changed or negotiate a similar settlement. There's a lot of books that fall into that category, and that's going to be hard.

The other nonexclusive part is that authors and rights holders don't HAVE to participate in this project if they want to have their books scanned and distributed online, they're free to negotiate on their own behalf with another scanning entity if they choose to opt-out of the settlement.

[Natheya]

The open book alliance should clearly change their name as the only thing they are concerned with is making money on books that aren't there's that they can capitalize on. They are far from any sort of open concept. It is practices like this that continue to stunt progression and societal development in favor of past century capitalist views. Until people wake up they will continue to enslave the population until they charge you per breath you take.

[InklingBooks]

I've been in this dispute for longer than I care to think about, having been one of seven authors back in April who persuaded the court to order a four-month delay in the settlement. I'll try to clarify issues others have raised.

If the settlement is accepted by the court, Google will have the SOLE right to distribute a digital "display" of a book without the author's permission. To prevent them from doing that, an author must find out that the settlement applies to his book and formally 'opt-out' of the settlement. Take note of something that Google has been careful to conceal. What is at issue is the U.S. copyright of almost all book authors in the world whose book was first published since 1922 and whose book is now out of print. If you live on planet earth and have written a book, this is about you. The settlement gives no one else the right to do that. That exclusive right, reserved for Google alone, is what has groups like Amazon, Microsoft, and the Internet Archive up in arms.

But it is also true that Google's right is NON-EXCLUSIVE, meaning that the settlement doesn't restrict the AUTHOR HIMSELF from authorizing someone else to post it online or bring out a print version. But keep something important in mind. With Google displaying an entire book in some contexts (libraries who pay Google's subscription fees) and 20% of it to anyone with a U.S. IP address, anyone who wants to bring his book back into print will be competing with Google's free copy. If you were an author, would you want your $15 book competing with Google's free copy, especially as portable ebook readers become more common? Not likely.

Data I have from one of the parties in the dispute suggest that Google's sole right to all books whose authors don't formally opt out is the one that matters. Of the books in Google's initial scans from major university libraries, less than five percent of the authors have come forward to provide contact information. To get across the significance of that, assume for a moment that everyone in that five percent was so ticked off at Google that they said, "No way can Google display my book, but anyone else can contact me and get permission to do so for free." That'd be the worse case scenario for Google, but if would still be marvelously good for them and dreadful for any competitor. Why? Because with the 95% who don't formally opt-out forcibly opted-in, Google can display 95% of the the out-of-print books published in the world since 1922. (that's a lot of books.) Its competitors would only be able to display the 5% who provided contact information and then only after contacting the author and getting permission.

That's why the central evil in this settlement is the forced opt-in if you don't opt-out by September 4 provision. That's why Google was far from happy when we seven authors called for a four-month delay to give authors more time to find out what the settlement really meant. Google had been grudgingly willing to concede a one month extension. When we came along and said we were about to petition the court, they even more grudgingly were willing to accept two months. But our call for a four month delay had them very alarmed.

Why? You're seeing the reason. At the time I suspected that four months was just enough time to inform people about what the settlement meant and awaken opposition. That's what has happened.

The big question is whether four months has been enough time to marshall enough opposition to get, at the very least, that forced opt-in provision stripped from the settlement. Once it is removed, the settlement is no longer coercive. It becomes nor more than a dreadful contract that most writers won't care to sign. All the advantages Google wants to win over their competitors disappear. Amazon, Microsoft, the Internet Archive and even Bill's Digital Bookstore in His Garage, will all be competing on equal footing with Amazon for an author's permission to post. The author himself will get to decide who can and cannot display his books. That's as it ought to be, because that's what copyright is--the right to decide who can copy.

--Michael W. Perry, Seattle

[Tom Krazit]

Thanks very much for your comments, Michael. Can you send me an e-mail (tom.krazit at cnet.com) with your contact infoif you're willing to discuss further?

[kgsbca]

So how do the publishers have a right to negotiate with google for the right to publish copyrighted works for which they do not own the copyright? If a publisher only has an agreement with the copyright owner (i.e., the author), how can a court allow any publisher to assign those rights, without getting permission from the copyright holder.?

I have been vocal in criticizing the opponents of the settlement because the only information provided was this was a non-exclusive license to sell e-versions of out of print books. The fact that a court is willing to abrogate author's rights to expedite an agreement between two big organizations demonstrates either corruption or ignorance. We had both in the last administration, I hate to think there's still remnants of it left in the government.

I can understand google wanting this deal, but why would authors be in favor of this?

[viper941]

"The open book alliance should clearly change their name as the only thing they are concerned with is making money on books that aren't there's that they can capitalize on."

Not sure where you get this from as "The Open Book Alliance" is about the freedom of information and protecting the intellectual rights of writers and is part of those who are opposing Google having exclusive rights.

That being said...
If Google did not obtain the rights of distribution illegally, and they give the owners of the intellectual rights the opportunity to not be a part of the distribution offered by Google, Then I feel that Google should be able to maintain an exclusive distribution right for a set period of time in which case they would have the opportunity to either renew that right or if the owner of that right chose to go to another publisher for that form of distribution.

[qncenterlab2]

thanks for sharing,

james:
<a http://www.qncenter.com">Dr. Robert Marshall</a>