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National Writer’s Union opposes Google settlement; I agree
August 14, 2009 | 9:21 am
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By Paul Biba
Below is part of the press release and thanks to Edward Hasbrouck for the link.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while and finally have come to the conclusion that I agree with the position taken by the Union. The Settlement amounts to nothing more than court-licensed theft. What’s even more unforgivable is the whole operating procedure is set up solely for Google’s benefit and seems designed to make it difficult for authors to keep their books from being stolen. The onus is placed on the little guy to protect his rights in the face of a government-sanctioned (for the courts are a branch of the government) giveaway to a big company. Not to mention, of course, all those writers from foreign countries who will have their books stolen and never even have a clue that it is going on. Only two parties benefit from the settlement: Google and all the settlement lawyers who will get millions in legal fees.
Of course some would argue that the public benefits by having all these orphan works published. That is specious and short term thinking. Once we establish the principle of theft by a government-sanctioned private company the supposed benefits pale compared to the next thing that will be stolen for someone’s profit motive – and protected by the judicial system.
The National Writers Union today announced its opposition to the proposed $125 million settlement of a class-action copyright infringement lawsuit brought by writers and publishers against Google because its massive book-scanning project violated their copyrights.
“The proposed settlement is grossly unfair to writers,” said Larry Goldbetter, president of the National Writers Union, Local 1981 of the United Auto Workers. “It gives Google monopolistic control over access to many previously published copyrighted books and materials,
and allows Google to collect and sell information about the reading habits of individuals.” …“More importantly, the economic well-being of all writers will be greatly impacted by precedents set by any court-approved agreement,” Goldbetter said. “By scanning and digitally reproducing millions of copyrighted books and articles without permission by the writers, Google violated authors’ constitutionally protected rights,” Goldbetter said. …
“Putting the onus on writers to contact Google is also grossly unfair,” Goldbetter said, “Google is essentially saying ‘we are going to steal your work and sell it under terms we dictate unless you tell us not to.’ A corporation, no matter how powerful, shouldn’t be able to profit from your work without first contacting you and obtaining your permission in writing.”
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Comments:
“Once we establish the principle of theft by a government-sanctioned private company…”
Didn’t SCOTUS in Kelo v. New London already give their seal of approval to that sort of thing?
Does the Google Books Settlement Agreement give Google exclusive rights to a book they have scanned into their collection or does it NOT block another entity from scanning another copy of a book and perhaps reaching a separate agreement with similar rightsholder groups?
Meaning if, say Microsoft, wants to scan copies of books from other library systems or other such collections and then provide a similar service does the Google settlement prevent that?
As long as the settlement is not giving Google EXCLUSIVE access and right to sell any scanned version of a book still under copyright I don’t think I object.
The simple fact of the matter is that the vast majority of the copyrighted books involved essentially have zero value to the rights holders. Perhaps, as a result of what Google is doing some of these books may find a new audience and provide some amount of money from the market. But…who to pay?
It’s extremely difficult (if not impossible – tho it’s probably no too hard to track down the likes of King or Rowling) to even find a rights holder to try and secure permission and provide payment for most of the books involved. So saying the burden should be on Google to contact the rights holders first is just unrealistic.
Google has, as part of this settlement, agreed to create an independent, non-profit Book Rights Registry which will allow rights holders to sign up and provide contact info so that there will finally be someplace that one can go to to find out who and where rights holders are.
Flawed the Google settlement may be but something needs to try and break this logjam.
If Google is making money off copyrighted books they should pay for it. If they can’t find the authors, they should pay the money to that unified registry body so that when the authors notice they’re being exploited they can collect without having to go to court. Any monies accumulated when the copyright expires should go to benefit author charities of one kind or another.
Google should not be the only beneficiary.
Period.
I have been only following the Google settlement issue in the briefest overview of research, but I don’t see why all of these law suits are popping up personally. If the book is still determined to be in publication and available, user cannot see the whole book anyway. If the book is now unable to be found in publication, this is telling me the author is not maintaining the books availability in any readily accessible public means and if such is the case, that work has a high likely hood of being lost to the ages. So the various foundations suing Google seem to favor an authors work is better lost than to be maintained in some form, and that nobody should ever rediscover this persons work. As to complaint of government sanctioned theft and the onus of protection being placed on the author. That has always been the case. For example a person goes and copies your work in it’s entirety and republishes it under their own name, there is no agency readying all books and saying this has been done before. It is up to the author or his representatives having to find out about this and then pursuing legal action once discovered. So it has always been upon the author to maintain and protect their own works.
Why is the public good argument ‘specious’? As Erik Peterson points out, it has always been the author’s responsibility to protect his/her own copyright. At least the settlement gives authors who care about their out-of-print works a means to protect themselves.
But mostly, I really don’t understand how you can overlook the public benefit, which could be enormous. ‘Orphaned works’ is really a misnomer – these works are for all practical purposes ‘dead’. Now they have a chance to be reborn.
Maybe some kinks need to be worked out but, by and large, I think this is a very good thing for Society and Culture.