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Google founder Sergey Brin lauds Google book settlement
October 9, 2009 | 3:27 pm
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By Paul Biba
In an Op Ed piece in the New York Times, Sergey Brin, Google co-founder and technology president, goes on for a couple of pages about how great the book settlement is for readers.
He makes the points that books written after 1923 quickly disappear into a black hole and that the vast majority of books ever written are not accessible to anyone but academics. Sergy goes on to point out how dangerous library book storage is, with normal deterioration and fires, floods and other disasters continually destroying them.
He says that, under the settlement, the majority of revenue will flow back to the rights holders and that participation is in no way compulsory. Further, rights holders can set pricing and access rights to their works, or even withdraw them, at any time.
He feels that if the settlement is successful others will follow and it will serve as a plan or precedent for orphan works legislation.
I think a number of his arguments are specious, but it is an important statement of Google’s intentions and should be read in full by anyone interested in the settlement.
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Comments:
It is great to hear an alternative opinion from a defender of the Google Book agreement. TeleRead has presented a stream of denunciatory articles from highly motivated groups and individuals. The TeleRead editors did call admirably for other viewpoints but very few appeared.
I have read multiple excoriations of the Google Book agreement but none of them discussed the following point from Sergey Brin’s article:
So any complaining author or publisher can remove all the works he or she controls from Google Book search at any time, if the above quote is correct. Apparently complainants are angry because other authors and publishers may not remove the books that they control.
My question is: why not just go with opt-in and *only* serve up the books for which distribution is authorized, the way the rest of the univetse operates?
What makes google so special that they can set new rules that let *them* make money off unlicensed content until the owners discover the violation?
All it takes is a simple one word change.
As long as the settlement is opt-out it is exploitation and needs to be opposed.
They are angry because
it’s opt-out rather than opt-in.
.
By everyone preferably.
The Google Books Settlement is a extremely important issue and outside of geeks most people barely heard of it.
Besides, Paul, could you clarify why you’re calling Brin’s arguments specious ?
I’m starting to get sick of the hate Teleread is pouring into Google’s face. Brin properly addresses the recent FUD the settlement has been encountering, and you’re taking your fierce attitude as always. Would be nice if you could remind us your point of view (or point me to articles where you gather your thoughts).
Brin says:
This may be true — Brin wouldn’t lie in the New York Times. But it raises a question:
Why, then, was there a deadline, on September 4, 2009, for authors to choose whether or not to opt out of the Settlement?
The opt-out deadline of September 4 was published on Google’s website about the settlement, and on countless blogs and websites around the Net, such as this one:
Writer’s Beware
http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2009/09/victoria-strauss-google-book-search.html
Mr. Brin, can you solve this mystery for us?
Michael Pastore
50 Benefits of Ebooks
Felix Torres asks: “why not just go with opt-in”? That is an excellent question, and I think that the opt-in principle is often wonderful. Unfortunately, authors, publishers, and other copyright holders do not believe in opt-in as a general principle. If they did then every time that the term of copyright was extended a letter would have been sent to every reader. Here is a parodic example of an opt-in letter that should have been sent concerning the U.S. copyright extension act of 1998:
Dear Reader: We as copyright holders would love to increase the length of copyright to a term of 70 years after the death of the author. This means that a young author should have a copyright of more than 100 years! We promise to produce astonishing ground-breaking new books for you. Creating these works is impossible now because our motivation is flagging and many wish to quit. Some of our finest authors will not tap a keyboard or scribble a note unless they can be assured of the possibility that their great-great-great grandchild has the option of living a life of leisure.
Consider F. Scott Fitzgerald the author of the Great Gatsby. His masterpiece is about to enter the public domain. But if you extend copyright he will be re-energized with an overwhelming compulsion to write. He will rise from the grave as a zombie and create a more wondrous magnum opus. That was just some Halloween humor. Actually other authors will see how well the members of the Gatsby estate are compensated, and they will redouble their efforts to provide you with the highest quality literary output.
Copyright terms in the past were short or non-existent and the result was tragic. Inferior works such as “Hamlet” and “Romeo and Juliet” were produced. Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” was not commonsensical enough. Darwin’s “Origin of the Species” was not fully evolved. Now we have powerhouse titles such as “100 Weight-Loss Tips that Really Work”. Under the old copyright regime the reader probably would have been given at most 90 tips.
Some people contend that extending the term of copyright will profoundly damage the public domain. They say that this extension is the largest book theft in history! They say that this copyright grab it is an outrage driven by brute stupidity, naked greed, foolish vanity and Mickey Mouse. But what do they know?
[ ] Check here if you wish to opt-in and extend copyright on the books you read
[ ] Check here if you wish to opt-out because copyright extension is a horrific idea
Each copyright holder is responsible for sending a letter to each reader. Yes, this means that each holder will be required to send out hundreds of millions of letters, but we know based on the reaction to the Google Book agreement that the opt-in principle is sacred to so many people.
Michael Pastore asks about the deadline for opting-out of the Google Book agreement, and he provides an interesting link. Here is an excerpt from the linked text posted by Victoria Strauss:
This seems to agree with what Brin is saying in his op-ed piece.
Why are they choosing opt-out instead of opt-in? It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. With opt-out Google automatically gets control of every book out there. Google is going to make way more money on this deal than they’re spending paying their way through the legal system. That’s why they’re doing it. duh. Sergey may sound to those of you who want to believe (God knows why) like he’s doing humankind some great generous favor, but what he’s doing is increasing Google’s wealth and power. How is that not extremely obvious to everyone?
@Christine, Christine, Christine:
I agree with you — Google could be making a bundle on this deal, and for a very long time into the future. They will keep 37% of each book sold.
Google has made their fortune by doing things better than others: better web search, better web email, better discussion groups, better news aggregation, and so on. For ten years, Google has enriched the Internet world by offering valuable free services to the public. Few people object to the revenue that they generate from these enterprises. Google’s free projects that help the public, and Google’s profits from these projects, have lived together in relative matrimonial harmony.
Something about this Book Search Settlement is different. Once again, Google wants to give us something free. This time, unfortunately, the slice of free cheese may be sitting in a deadly mousetrap.
Yes, the Author’s Guild and the AAP favor the Settlement. These two groups will be receiving a large chunk of $ 125 million dollars for their approval. Can we trust their objectivity?
As expected, Google’s titanic rivals (Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo) oppose the Settlement. Their fierce competition with Google also calls their objectivity into question.
Unexpectedly however, these groups oppose the Settlement:
1) The Open Book Alliance
the government of France
2) The Electronic Frontier Foundation
3) The American Society of Journalists and Authors
4) Public Knowledge
5) The U.S. Department of Justice
6) Consumer Watchdog
7) the government of Germany
9–13) the States of Connecticut, Missouri, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Washington
I’ll stop listing groups here. By the way, I could not find a web page that listed all the groups and prominent individuals who oppose the Settlement. Maybe that is because I searched with Goolge.
Maybe a search-savvy TeleRead reader can help, and point us to one web page that lists the groups who favor the settlement, and the groups who oppose it.
Mr. Brin’s essay focused on the benefits of the Google Book Search Settlement. There are benefits, of course.
But Brin’s essay did not address the main arguments of his critics. The price that we would be paying for these benefits is a price that many individuals and groups are not willing to pay.
Lawrence Lessig has proposed an interesting compromise. He says that Google deserves something for their scanning expenses and efforts. Lessig suggests that the settlement should be approved for 14 years only, and not be renewed after that time.
Michael Pastore
50 Benefits of Ebooks
Why opt-out instead of opt-in? Because opt-in would not solve the problem of orphaned works. Orphaned works are orphaned precisely because nobody knows who owns them to opt them in.
About Brin’s assertion that “rights holders can at any time set pricing and access rights for their works or withdraw them from Google Books altogether”–it’s a bit more complicated than that. From the Settlement FAQ (from the section discussing the rights of writers who remain in the Settlement):
“What if I asked that my Book be removed and then change my mind and want my Book included?
Even if a Rightsholder removes a Book, it may be possible to contact Google subsequently to attempt to negotiate a separate deal, outside this Settlement, for inclusion of the Book.
Can I request that my books be removed and still participate in the Settlement?
Yes. If you want to participate in the Settlement but also want your Books removed, you must fill out the Claim Form on or before April 5, 2011. Thereafter, Google will honor your request only if a Book has not been digitized as of the date of the request.”
So for people who opt in and want to remove their books, it’s not clear that they could change their minds later and de-remove them. And once the claim form deadline passes, Google is only obliged to honor removal requests under certain circumstances. It seems clear, therefore, that there are limits to the control that writers who participate in the Settlement can exercise over their books.
The FAQ does state that writers who don’t remove their books can change their choices about display and pricing “over time”–but there’s no indication of how this would be done. Would Google maintain an online system? Would it would happen through the Book Rights Registry? Right now, no one knows. It seems pretty risky to trust that you’ll be able to easily and sensibly manage your rights when there’s currently no system for doing so.
Glaringly absent from Brin’s op-ed was anything about Google’s plans to monetize the Book Search database. My guess would be that those plans are extensive. Writers who remain in the settlement, and don’t direct Google to exclude their books, should expect to find those books on sale in multiple formats, over multiple platforms, via multiple vendors, in the future. While maximizing Google’s investment, this will have the effect of making rightsholders’ interests worthless, since it’s unlikely you could ever re-sell rights to a book that’s already on sale everywhere in the world. For many writers, of course, this won’t be a problem, as they aren’t trying to re-sell their out of print books; but for other writers it could pose a significant concern. This issue has been largely neglected by commenters and even Settlement opponents–which is especially ironic, given the current heated discussion of the value of electronic rights.
Of course, any and all of the Settlement’s provisions may be moot now. We’ll just have to wait and see.
The problem of orphan works? So Google is here to be the helper of all readers and solve the problem of orphaned works and make themselves a tidy little fortune for their troubles?
They will be in the public domain soon enough.
It’s not Google’s job to solve the problem of orphaned workss, who makes copyright laws? They can solve that problem if they want to.
Paul and David -
I would like that second comment above – on which the author has copied and pasted my words, and even used my name, but linked to his own blog – removed.
Let him use his own name and his own words to plug his scam blog here. I don’t appreciate it one little bit that you’ve allowed him to do that with my words and my name on your site.
Christine: We didn’t allow it. It is spam that got through the filter. It’s part of internet life and we all will have to adjust to it. This year we’ve gotten over 200,000 attempts to post spam comments and only a few, including this one, have made it through.
So I guess the authors of these otherwise orphaned works would prefer 100% of the $0 dollars that they are now receiving than part of this settlement?
Christine: Oh, sure, they’ll be in the public domain when Mickey Mouse is. Like that will ever happen.