If a book goes out of print and the author refuses to authorize a new edition, that book cannot be reprinted, however popular it might be. If an author shuts himself up on a mountain top and refuses to talk to anyone, his book can’t be published. Even if the author simply can’t be found (the orphan works problem), a book must remain out of print. Expediency can’t trump the rule of law.

I think this fails on constitutional grounds. It is one thing to grant an exclusive bundle of rights to authors under copyright allowing them to control how their work is used, but I think it falls short of the goal of “promoting the progress of science and the useful arts” to essentially kill a work once it has been published.

I personally think that any mechanical license (similar to mechanical royalties in music) should be legislatively enacted. That said, if there is to be an “opt-out” it should be a perpetual one, allowing an author at any point (when he or she finally decides to come down from the mountain), to not only opt-out, but also to seek direct compensation for the accumulated use of their work.

I don’t see how it benefits anyone to permit published works to be blotted off the landscape after they have been released. Anyhow, I hope you take my thoughts in the constructive way they’re offered, you’ve definitely educated me on the views of the authors who are objecting to the settlement, and I appreciate that!

The problem really is Google and their bizarre claim that out-of-print is the equivalent to out-of-copyright. I’m sure their lawyers know that what they’re doing violates every copyright law of every nation on the planet, along with the various international treaties. No one with a law degree could be that stupid. They simply don’t care and thought that by duping the media (an all-too-easy task) they could get away with it.

They almost did. The one thing they didn’t plan for was that four-month delay that I and six other authors persuaded the court to adopt. That’s made all the difference. On the eve of the former opt-out deadline there was virtually no awareness of what the settlement actually did. The media coverage had really been that bad–little more than Google press releases rewritten. Now you can go to this webpage:

http://thepublicindex.org/documents/responses

and find weighty, substantial, well-documented objections to the settlement. Those in opposition cite the law, including international treaties such as Berne. Those in support say little more than “Gee, free books, how nice.”

The media, with their child-like minds, typically sees things as stories. For a long time, the story was the “magical wonders of modern technology,” with Google offering a marvelous “digital library for the world.” Now it’s shifted to “the battle of the titans,” as the still clueless press tries to grapple with the fact that what Google is doing has opposition. They see giant opponents like Amazon and Microsoft and they have prepackaged “story” for that. What they’re unable to see are the writers, both talented and ordinary, who oppose the settlement. You can find what quite a few of them have told the court at the link above. That is reality and the media almost never understands reality, since it usually doesn’t fit one of their stock stories.

Google is now running scared, hence their efforts to make concessions, although most of those concessions are unimpressive. Letting Microsoft and Amazon steal an author’s long labors without his knowledge or consent doesn’t make Google’s theft of those same works any less vile. And it is to the credit of Microsoft and Amazon that they haven’t agreed to that ploy.

but why does anyone think it’s better for these books to simply be unavailable is a better alternative. There’s nothing stopping Amazon from striking up it’s own deal with the new Book Registry non-profit. Since it’s a settlement and not a judicial decision, there’s no precedent made here.