Comments on: Bezos: We've got issues with Google Book Search

At the Wired Business Conference, Amazon CEO says his company takes issue with the Web giant's Book Search project because of the exclusive rights it could gain to out-of-print digital books.

[gerrrg]

What Bezos meant to say, is that Google's deal excludes Amazon's ability to monetize out-of-print books, plain and simple.

[dargon19888]

It goes beyond that. Suppose you wrote a book, it got published and didn't get a lot of copies sold. It goes out of print and you go back to your day job and shelve your dreams of being the next great writer.

Fast forward a couple of years. Google now scans your book and publishes a portion of it online. You start to get a cult following.

Under Google's deal, you would have automatically been entered in to their 'land grab' because you didn't opt out. You will get *some* royalties but much less than you would have gotten from a traditional publisher. Even if you have an electronic copy of your book that you could rush to a publisher, you can't. You no longer own the rights to your own work.

In short, Google's deal automatically steals your IP unless you opt-out on short notice. The bad news is that its not just you, but authors who have died, yet still hold the copyright on their books that are out of print. Unless their estates know about this deal, they have to opt-out too.

Its the greatest con job if they can pull it off.

Also consider this... You put your own works online on your website. Google scan's your book and you don't opt-out. Google then sues you for copyright violation on your own work. And they would win! How's them apples?

[wshun0]

@dargon19888: I don't understand your last statement, it looks stupid. Google cannot steal your copyright.

The solution is dead simple. (1) A writer can simply ask Google to opt out all his works. (2) His work should include a statement rejecting any third party to do things on his work without his approval -- just like what a software maker does.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Actually you can lose your IP if you don't defend it. If Google posts your work online and you don't go to enough effort to protect against it, or it happens without your knowledge (more likely) for any length of time, Google could then gain the rights to the work through having had it posted for X amount of time and no contention filed.

It's stupid, but it's why groups like Disney have to keep protecting themselves by suing daycares and hospitals for painting Mickey Mouse on the wall of a children's burn ward.

[unknown unknown]

@ Vegaman_Dan Actually that only applies in the case of trademake. Failure to enforce a copyright or patent will not invalidate them. uspto.gov and copyright.gov if you want to look it up.

[istill316]

Opt-out is the biggest scam I've heard. Somebody can rob you and gets to keep all your stuff as long as you can't find them or don't know you've been robbed? LAME. How the heck is this legal?

[mayselc]

You guys might want to read the settlement agreement. It's not totally incomprehensible. This section might shed some light on your concerns:

2.4 Non-Exclusivity of Authorizations. The authorizations granted to Google
in this Settlement Agreement are non-exclusive only, and nothing in this Settlement
Agreement shall be construed as limiting any Rightsholder?s right to authorize, through
the Registry or otherwise, any Person, including direct competitors of Google, to use his,
her or its Books or Inserts in any way, including ways identical to those provided for
under this Settlement Agreement.

[dgutf]

Amazon has had the same opportunity to digitize books as Google has had. Sour grapes.

[unknown unknown]

No, Google's Book Search settlement is bad. Even the DOJ is looking into it (now that they've decided to start enforcing the anti-trust law again) because the advantage it gives Google over everyone else when it comes to out of print books. Basically if Google scans an out of print book and the owner doesn't opt-out, Google become sole distributor for that book.

[LilySpark01]

I got a problem with google book search and the so called settle ment. They have a recently published book listed as non commercially availiable but it is availiable

[shinelikeitdoes]

way to back that up with some evidence.

[shoonya]

Yeah right and Google is squeaky clean ..... you smell something fishy from miles..

[Super2online]

It's not clear to me from the article that these agreements don't preclude others from doing the same if they are fincially capabile of pulling it off. I would hate to think that the only place you could get this was from Google. That in itself would create a monopoly.

[professionaladventurer]

Yeah, his first quote says it all: "I have an opinion and I am keeping it to myself" I.E. we are about to sue you.

[ashish_12]

It's been a while since I've heard the word 'sinecure' being used. I'm not sure he used it correctly though.

[mishmash0101]

Bezo's and the print industry just can't understand that they are the dinosaurs in the digital age.

[Police_States_of_America]

at least we can look forward to google distributing the books without digital_AIDS, whoops i mean DRM, can you do that amazon?

[jonahb]

ashish_12: You are correct, sir. I think he meant panacea, not sinecure.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Surprisingly, nobody has mentioned this is all Microsoft's fault yet. Most topics here have someone saying that regardless of what the actual topic is. :)

[Simplicius]

You are right. I wonder how many of the comments saying negative things about Google were posted by paid Microsoft shills. It is known that large companies such as MS pay people to post, so it's probably part of their campaign to paint Google bad.

[Super2online]

Simplicius ,

That may be true, but, in this case, Google is doing very well on their own painting themselves exceptionally bad.

[chuckl8899]

It's ironic that Bezos implies that e-readers might be part of the advertising solution for newspapers and magazines when there's no advertising model for newspapers/magazines on the Kindle and no support for color or video, and that Amazon takes 70% of the revenues from people reading magazines and newspapers on Kindle. Sounds to me like Amazon is more like the problem than the solution for publishers of magazines and newspapers