“A federal judge rejected Google’s $125 million class-action settlement with authors and publishers, delivering a blow to the company’s ambitious plan to build the world’s largest digital library and bookstore. Judge Denny Chin of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York said that the settlement went too far in granting Google rights to profit from books without the permission of copyright owners, and that it was ‘not fair, adequate and reasonable’.” Here is a desk. Please to bang head against it repeatedly until world starts making sense.
This decision is abusive. Nothing should restrict access to public domain.
All books in the public domain must be made available for digitization (i.e. books first published 3-5 years ago or older) with no restriction.
If changing copyright terms from 70-120 years to 3-5 years is not enforced more strictly and universally, such abusive legal rulings will continue to piss us off.
On what planet is copyright only good for 3-5 years?
Agreed, I’ve always felt it should be the life of the author, period. After all, once the author is dead, how can she possibly be bothered by her works becoming public domain? Granted, in the event of untimely death this could be bad for the publisher contracted to release the author’s works, but since death is the ultimate release from a contract I don’t see an issue with it.
I know there is also the question of the author’s family and such, but the family didn’t write the books (except in rare cases like Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series).
Bottom line, there are a lot of great books out there which remain in limbo, i.e. out of print and the publisher has no intention of reprinting them, but it’s still 50 years before they go public domain so no one benefits.
So what? In most countries authors (or their peers) get compensation when books are borrowed from the library. So yes, authors can still earn money from out-of-print books.
Really? I didn’t know of that fact in France. And I don’t even see how that would be feasible unless everyone who has a library card is tracked or book.
How can you contend this? It might have an unfortunate effect that leads you to saying “Nothing should restrict access to public domain.” but it doesn’t mean it’s “abusive”.
Should Google abandon what the judge sees as “profit from books without the permission of copyright owners” the decision would be changed.
The judge did indicate that revisions to the agreement could make it acceptable but, as it stands right now, the settlement overreaches. And I think the following quote in the article articulates a valid position:
“Even though it is efficient for Google to make all the books available, the orphan works and unclaimed books problem should be addressed by Congress, not by the private settlement of a lawsuitâ€
Edited 2011-03-23 01:44 UTC
Well if you read through that article you see that Google only agreed to that settlement because it would get the right to publish orphaned works as well. Basically everyone involved including the publishers, authors and Google were profiting from the work of others. This judgement means they can’t do that. Now they can only hawk their own work which is how things are supposed to be.
Well, as someone who is visually impaired and greatly benefits from being able to increase font sizes in ebooks, I don’t care WHO digitizes these books, as long as somebody does.
We all lose.
Wait wasn’t Thom against large record companies releasing orphan records and making money. Now that Google is doing basicly same on books its okey. Maybe you should move Egypt, I’m sure you find lot of two faced friends there.
Lolwut?
I like this trend where self publication is on the rise.
When publishing houses get’s involved, a decision by the author to make his work public domain after a few years is very difficult.
Part of the reason that historically getting your work published on your own through paper media was just to expensive for authors to fund themselves.
The internet and rise of ebooks make it much easier to selfpublish and control your works copyright terms.
This is the false state of copyright laws. They were never intended to be forever. The Government was to only allow a short time to recover the authors profit. Then the works were to be part of a public domain and held there forever to enrich the community and enlighten the masses. Sadly the masses are not being enlightened and this is the real crime. Not a crime of money but a crime against the future of civilization.
This has nothing to do with the length of copyright law. Copyright law could be 2 years and the underlying issue which caused the judge to overturn the settlement would still exist.
The key question is orphan works; where works are otherwise invisible, how can both rightsholders (if finally identified) and the public gain benefit by a third party providing information and possible access to such works?
To an extent, the EU has addressed this, or provided a potential solution: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/digital_librarie…
But folks, let’s face it, Google, by seeking to be the solution, is essentially seeking to usurp the real guardian of the public good, i.e., libraries. In the solution above, libraries could act as the arbiter to ensure the greater availability of such works. The Google way implies that there is no other means of obtaining works like these.
If Google is *really* only concerned with amassing and spreading knowledge for its own sake, then why doesn’t it at least offer a ‘dark cache’ of this type of material it is digitizing to, say, the Library of Congress, or the British Library, or the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek or Bibliotheca Alexandrina, in case of its going out of business, systemic failure, etc.? Google won’t last forever but for example Chetham’s Library, which was founded in 1653, is the oldest public library in the English-speaking world, and remains free to use to this day.
Libraries are in this for the long haul; Google is in it for profit. After the recent economic crash, where would you put your money?
While reading this post a suitable music setting would be
Vince Gill: Blue Trail of Sorrow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SApZerWmvc
Dan Tyminski & Ron Block: I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8LCYS_85Dk&playnext=1&list=PL1F7193…
Edited 2011-03-24 15:30 UTC