Google offers rivals a place in e-books program
Google offered an olive branch to rivals of its digital book efforts at a congressional hearing Thursday, but Amazon was having none of it.
David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, testifies before Congress.
(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)The move involves a major point of contention in Google's project to bring books to the Internet and in a proposed settlement of class-action suits that author and publisher groups brought against the project. Specifically, Google announced a reseller program that would let competitors get some measure of the rights--and revenue--that Google itself could get through the settlement.
"Any bookseller--Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Microsoft--would be able to sell the books covered by the settlement," said David C. Drummond, Google's chief legal officer. Under the proposed settlement, Google would get 37 percent of revenue from e-books sold through its service, and through the reseller program, the reseller would get "the significant majority" of that 37 percent, Drummond said.
He announced the offer during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on digital books issues raised by Google Books project. If the settlement is approved, Google would get the right to sell not just books for which it had explicit agreements with rights holders, but also for out-of-print books that still are in copyright for which Google doesn't have explicit permission.
That blanket permission has worried some, notably Amazon, which has scanned 3 million books with permission and opposes the settlement. Drummond explicitly said Amazon would be allowed to participate the revenue-sharing program.
Amazon: No thanks
But Amazon indicated it's not interested after Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan, asked the company's reaction to this "thrilling new piece of information" from Google.
Paul Misener, Amazon's vice president of global policy
(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)"The Internet has never been about intermediation," said Paul Misener, Amazon's vice president of global policy. "We're happy to work with rights holders without anybody else's help."
The hearing revealed some representatives, including the chairman, to be allies of Google. Also generally speaking in favor of Google's work were Zoe Lofgren and Brad Sherman, both Democrats from California.
"It is a good thing to provide millions of Americans access to published works that otherwise wouldn't be available to them," Conyers said. "A library available to every household with an Internet connection--this could be the greatest innovation in book publishing since the Gutenberg press."
But a high-profile opponent emerged in Marybeth Peters, the register of copyrights at the U.S. Copyright Office.
"By permitting Google to engage in an array of new uses, the settlement would alter the landscape of copyright law," in effect subjecting authors to "compulsory licenses" for their works, Peters said.
"Compulsory licenses are the domain of Congress, not the courts," she said, adding that the settlement could cause diplomatic stress for the United States because foreign authors' books are in U.S. library collections that Google is scanning.
Opting in or out
Google wants to be able to sell electronic books online and has scanned 10 million books since 2004 as part of the program. About 2 million are out of copyright, meaning Google and anyone else may do as they like with them; about 2 million are in copyright and in print, with Google establishing permission from rights holders; and about 6 million are in copyright and out of print. It's this last category that's so contentious--particularly in the case of "orphaned" books, whose rights holders can't be located.
Misener specifically objected to the way in which the class-action suit would give Google the right to sell access to the in-copyright, out-of-print books without obtaining permission first.
Google is the only entity in the world that could approach copyright as an opt-out mechanism," Misener said, meaning that authors and publishers are included in the Google project by default. "Everybody else faces the current legal regime, which is opt-in."
Marybeth Peters, the register of copyrights at the U.S. Copyright Office
(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)Sharing Misener's concerns was Rep. Hank Johnson, a Democrat from Georgia. "I'm troubled by the exclusive access Google will have to orphaned works. Why should Google be the only entity permitted to sell orphaned works?" he asked. And he believes the case in the courts could edge in on the job of his own branch of government.
Orphaned works rights-holders aren't completely ignored in the proposed settlement, though. It would create a nonprofit organization called the Books Rights Registry that would collect sales revenue--minus Google's cut--and use that money to locate missing rights holders of and compensate them and other rights holders.
Google argues its program will let millions of out-of-print books generate revenue once again, including orphaned works. Reinforcing Google's point, Sherman criticized Amazon for focusing on digitizing bestsellers but not bothering to bring other books to the electronic realm.
Misener stood by Amazon's position, though. "We are not scanning books for which rights holders cannot be found in advance. That's the way the law requires," he said.
Sherman countered by likening the orphan-works situation to that of unclaimed property. "We want unused property and unclaimed property to be made use of, and we want the ultimate owner to be compensated when found," he said. "To say all that knowledge should be locked up and unavailable to humankind doesn't seem to be in the interest of knowledge."
Congress or the courts?
Conyers indicated he doesn't see the orphaned-works issue as an issue that can't be resolved.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers
(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)"My primary concern is because Google reached this settlement, they now have exclusive access to orphaned works," Conyer said. "This can be remedied by legislation."
Such legislation hasn't been easy to come by, though. The House and Senate have worked on it in recent years but have yet to pass any new law. Google's proposed settlement raises the issue that for one company at least, the orphan-works issue could be settled in the judicial branch of government rather than the legislative branch.
"The best protection of the prerogatives of the legislative branch is for us to legislate. Since we have haven't done very effectively the legislation on the orphaned works, it's hard for me to condemn the courts to have a case before it that determines what can be done and can't be done with orphaned works," said Rep. Mel Watt, a Democrat from North Carolina.
Johnson disagreed. "The settlement is coming very close to whittling away the powers of the U.S. Congress. The treatment of orphaned rights holders is a matter that should be determined by Congress," he said.
Things get even more complicated, too: the executive branch, in the form of the Justice Department, is investigating the proposed Google Books settlement.
For its part, Google has no objection to legislation--even if it grants competitors rights to the same books the proposed settlement would give it access to. "We support Congress going in and legislating around that," Drummond said.
Updated at 11:15 a.m. PDT with further detail from the hearing.
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
Not only are they trying to manipulate authors and publishers, they are now trying to manipulate the market by throwing a bone to the competition. That is so evil.
Google has become the enemy of the people, especially creative people.
Thus when someone sits on creative works and denies it to the world for whatever reason the world is a bit worse off (ignoring the exceptions to the rule) and so provisions that bring the work back into use and create income for the orginator (remember the company not marketing a work is normally different from the person who crated it) is a good thing for society, and since someone is getting paid, the creator.
Google is the worlds largest and most successful parasite. That anyone still believes that this is a good thing seems hard to believe.
I will break into your home and take what I like, but I will let you borrow it when you need it(maybe this analogy is a little extreme)
Next Google will take pictures of Art or buy a stock agency and use the images without paying the ones who took the images. What they are doing is wrong, they are spinning it around to make it look like they are doing good.
There is nothing exclusive about it.
It also does not fit. You're comparing tangible items with intellectual items. A more fitting analogy is you breaking into Mr. Knight's home, making perfect clones of his stuff (without damaging the originals), and then letting him borrow the clones whenever he wants.
You cannot steal his ideas or creative works, since he still has them even after you're long gone.
were you guys nearly as rabid when Apple was the only distributor of electronic music content? No of course not because they were the small fry. The ONLY reason you people are going ape**** is because Google is no longer the small company they use to be. In point of fact show me a single instance of Google intentionally being malevolent. There isn't one. Because for all the complaining about privacy, about how google is going to turn into big brother, and how they are evil....at the end of the day all they are trying to do is enable people to have access to more and more data, that is their sole underlying goal. And until they start behaving like MS did in the 90's and early '00's their is NOTHING to base is irrational opinion on.
No, no, no. It's not like Google has been taking the authors of each of these four million works out for coffee and they've informally agreed that Google will publish their books, although an "explicit" contract has yet to be signed. In the great majority of the cases, perhaps 95%, there's been no contact of any sort between Google and the author and thus nothing remotely resembling permission. If an author's copyright were like his wallet, Google would be a pickpocket not the cashier at a supermarket.
In a nutshell, Google believes it has the right to display any out of print book first published anywhere in the world since 1922 without the author's knowledge or consent. In the vast majority of cases, even though the deadline to opt out lest you be forcible opted in passed last Friday, authors don't know what Google is doing because clueless news outlets such as CNET haven't been covering this story accurately. Only recently, as others have leaped into this fray, has what they said been anything other that rehashes of Google press releases. It is just that pitiful.
Keep in mind one important fact. What Google wants to do is not even remotely, remotely permitted by the copyright laws of any nation or by international treaties such as Berne, which has been signed by 164 countries including the U.S. I've yet to see in any of the filings in support of the agreement any argument of substance that what Google is doing is legal. Sony's filing, for instance, talks mostly about the chance it will give them to sell more ebook readers. Sony, vicious at defending its own copyrights, is indifferent to those of others. Corporate hypocrisy.
In its defense, Google has been claiming that the right that it wants to assume through this settlement isn't "exclusive." That's true, but it is true because Google doesn't have permission from the copyright holder at all, much less exclusive permission. No rights, no exclusive rights.
The press in this country amazes me. Their trust in some information source is usually inversely proportional to that source's honesty. In this case, it seems to be only dimly dawning on CNET's Stephen Shankland that their might be a POV other than that in Google's press releases. He still doesn't seem to have read the settlement itself or compared it to Berne, much less read all the objections you can find posted at:
http://thepublicindex.org/documents/responses
My hunch is that the court will toss the settlement out--lock, stock and barrel, telling the three parties that what they want to do isn't remotely legal.
And personally, I don't want to see the present Congress getting into this dispute. Many seem clueless about both law and ethics. Take this remark, for instance: "But Amazon indicated it's not interested after Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan, asked the company's reaction to this "thrilling new piece of information" from Google."
Amazon, to its great credit, understands copyright law and wants to abide by it. Conyers has the attitude so typical of today's Congress, that it isn't theft if enough people agree to a robbery. What Google wants to do is rob people of their labors in the past. What Conyers and many others want to do is rob the next generation of any future by massive spending paid for by increasing the federal debt. For each, that sort of behavior is "thrilling." For me it is sick, unbearably sick.
Even more important, the issues that technology has created can't be addressed by Congress, least of all the robber barons we now have in office. The Google settlement and similar schemes violate international treaties that we have signed. Even Congress can't override those treaties. We need to revised those treaties, taking care to be fair to all, something this settlement does not do. And the faster we dump this settlement, the sooner we can take up that task.
--Michael W. Perry, Seattle
An last I check congress or any government for that matter can pull out of any treaty its wants, it would of cause lead other countries to pull out . An I be shock if the president could not do it on emergency grounds althrough I do not htink there a emergency here.
About rewriting copy right laws, every western country tried in the past an they do not get fairer they get less fair and far tighter ans they usally add few years to the life time of the copyright. An congress and most major countries been discussing copy right for years but often authors such as you moan and ***** to the politcans until they give up or just give you want you want rather than what best for the public.
Amazon does not give to hoots about copyright laws, neither does Yahoo or Microsoft all they care about is driving google to give them good deals on access to the library google built and funded. You think Google would of made the deal they have done if Amazon co had not ask them for such a deal, I do not think so some how. So far they have not got the deal they want but when they do they pull out of the case and support google guaranteed.
My hunch is that if the settlement is toss and Google will win the faire use trial, which started this all off, giving them access to the knowledge in the books anyway which is what they wanted anyway but not being able to sell books or share them with rivals. Which would probably suite google just fine. At least internally they will have the books they have scan to improve there technology. So either we get a digital library would the world to use or Google get one for it internal use. I personally would prefer the first one.
An as to trust information sources why should we trust Mr Perry because you a honest lawyer or perhaps you a honest publisher, I know for a fact neither of those exist because if they do they would not survive for very long. An if you a author by any chance then well apparently they all complaining about difficult the deal is to understand, so again why should we trust you that you.
I guess thats the American dream, lots of inexpensive trash and endless adds. Sad, but if thats what the consumers want, it is probably what they will get.
I think any effort that tries to bring books that are hidden away out into the public is a good thing - and certainly helped me on my assignments.
Wether you agree with what google is trying to do or not, they are going through the legal system so you cant really copmplain abnout the end result.
At worst you could only compare them with Debt collectors, not robbers :P
My ONLY problem is with Exclusivity. I think any competitor should be able to JNVEST THEIR (STOCKHOLDER'S)proceed along the same path. What about Microsoft's Content acquisitions of photostock libraries? Getty Images?
I'm sure some images within libraries are also "orphaned."
In fact, it would be hard to find any archived knowledge libraries that didn't contain orphaned materials.
What about the libraries of defunct film studios? Defunct News gatherers and their libraries now in the possession of successors?
Google should be "prospecting those areas as well, if only to facilitate Cloud Education programs.
- by Jonathan September 13, 2009 2:07 AM PDT
- "By permitting Google to engage in an array of new uses, the settlement would alter the landscape of copyright law"
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(24 Comments)Umm GOOD! Copyrights and patents in this country have been so thoroughly ****** its about damn time something altered the landscape.
And frankly I'm about 2 seconds away from selling my Kindle. Amazon's behavior has been nothing short of ************ as this I'm taking my ball and going home attitude with this latest comment has shown.
Dear Amazon. Play nice or loose the ebook game outright. See the RIAA as a reference for what I'm talking about.