Comments on: Germany files formal opposition to Google Book Settlement

By: Iouri Haller

Iouri Haller — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:31:43 +0000

Copyrights here at anything!
Each publisher in Germany is obliged to pay to the registrar 5 euros for the book. Only then the book arrives in the uniform book register, can technically be on sale. If Google adjusts this work free of charge, many will lose the incomes. Including the corrupted German government.

By: Joscha

Joscha — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:25:41 +0000

@TheRealBillC

IMHO, it will not resolve itself through the cooperation between authors, publishers and government agencies. These represent the existing system, with powerless authors (they are always over-abundant), and publishers worried about their shrinking revenues, and government agencies imposing ridiculous copyright and DRM laws.

eBooks represent a new economical and cultural ecosystem. Dont ask the dinosaurs to design it, because they would very much prefer to keep everything as it is, only more so.
We need new creatures to populate the new sphere, and Google is currently the strongest one.

By: TheRealBillC

TheRealBillC — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:20:56 +0000

There is a better way to do it. Responsible parties including authors, publishers, and government agencies could get together and propose something that was fair and equitable to them, while giving readers and researchers a reasonable way to access these works, but that hasn’t happened yet, even with the threat of the settlement looming. And that is the crux of the problem, when the people who should be leading don’t, some other force will fill the void. That is why we have the settlement, and that is why we have book pirates on the internet, and DRM, and ebooks costing as much or more than pbooks, and all the other ills of the book industry, in my opinion.

By: Paul Biba

Paul Biba — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:31:12 +0000

The problem is, from my perspective, that one man, unelected, and not a subject matter expert, will be making decisions that will impact the entire world. Doesn’t make much sense to me. There may not be a better way to do it, but this certainly is not even a reasonable way.

By: Joscha

Joscha — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:52:39 +0000

Actually, it is _good_ that the Google Book Settlement would alter the landscape of international copyright law!
There are some things that should be improved, especially:
- there should be a process that puts everybody into the same position as Google, so Google does not become a monopoly
- especially, there should be a central registry handling rights, objections and license fees
- there should be an international arbitration between the various national registries

But lets not forget that 98 percent of all books are permanently unavailable in any form, because they are out of print, and no current rightsholder is willing or able to bring them back to the readers. This can only happen through a radical change in copyright law, and thats why we need the Settlement.

What we see now is the result of a concerted lobbying effort of German publishers, that want to prevent out-of-print books (i.e. stuff that they do not make a penny from) from becoming digital and thus hurting their business models. Even if they are getting paid for it.