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Revised Google Book Settlement presented to the Court: Limited to U.S., Canada, Australia, U.K.
November 14, 2009 | 10:51 am
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By Paul Biba
The revised Settlement has made a number of important changes:
1. Foreign language works are out: the scope is limited to works registered with the US Copyright Office and books published in Canada, Australia and the U.K. There will be representatives from those countries on the Book Rights Registry board.
2. There will be an independent court-approved fiduciary who will represent rights-holders of unclaimed books and act to protect their interests, including licensing their works.
3. The Books Rights Registry is not required to search for rights-holders who have not come forward.
4. Third parties will be able to sell access to all settlement works, including orphans, even though Google will host the titles.
5. Revenue models have been limited to print on demand, file download and subscriptions.
6. Rights-holders may make their works available for free.
7. The Google’s most favored nation treatment has been eliminated allowing the Registry to license works to third parties without extending the same terms to Google.
This summary courtesy of the Publishers Lunch email report.
Related: Techmeme roundup.
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Comments:
This revised version is better than the previous version, but is it good enough ? Does it still give Google an enormous advantage regarding the orphaned works, or does it level the playing field ? Does it comply with U.S. copyright law, or (as in the earlier version) does it place Google in the stratosphere (or, in the Googlesphere), miles above the laws ?
Peter Brantley and Victoria Stauss have written a number of insightful articles on this subject: I’d like to see what Brantley and Strauss are saying about this new version of the settlement.
Michael Pastore
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