Opting Out of the Google Books Settlement, Pro & Con 125
Here are diametrically opposing view on what authors should do about the upcoming deadline to opt out of the Google Books settlement. Miracle Jones writes "The William Morris Agency has come out strongly against the Google Books settlement for its clients, citing the fact that the settlement creates a non-competitive marketplace for a whole new product (orphan books), in addition to containing provisions that will make it impossible for writers to remove books from the database after 27 months have passed: 'We believe that the license being given to Google to publish and display with impunity out-of-print "orphan" works (where the rights owner is unknown and estimated by the Financial Times to be between 2.8 and 5 million books out of 32 million books protected by copyright in the United States) will open the door to establishing Google as the most comprehensive database, potentially a monopoly, with unfair bargaining power.'" On the other side of the debate, James Gleick writes "With the deadline approaching for 'opting out' of the Google Books settlement, the Authors Guild has posted an aggressive explanation of who it thinks should do that: no one. Not a single author in the world, it argues, stands to benefit from removing himself or herself from the class. This comes as part of a new set of 'Answers' meant to push back against what the authors group thinks is widespread confusion about the settlement; they also address questions about just what kind of money we might be talking about, and what kind of control authors will have over Google's use of their work."
What about future authors? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe I'm not reading this right, if there is a deadline to opt out, and I write my first book after that deadline, can I still opt out?
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Actually that was the same thought I immediatly had when reading this. Also, even if you already have published a book, how can any contract the Author's Guild makes with Google affect your rights, unless you explicitly applied as a member of the Guild?
Re:What about future authors? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, you could say that it doesn't affect your rights directly, only in so far as those rights are no longer as exclusive as they were. It grants additional rights to the defendant, Google, which is unusual in a lawsuit.
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Read up on class action lawsuits. If you don't understand them then don't bother posting comments to this story till you do. It'll help you avoid looking like a fool.
Yes, I'm coming off as an ass. Yes, it's because I'm frustrated with the same question coming up every fucking time the Google settlement is discussed. No, it's not meant to be personal.
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Keep your work in print during the copyright with a POD publisher after your last printing. Then your work will never be orphaned.
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Even if every page in the book was available on Google Books (which I suspect won't be the case), the analogy with music would be like listening to music on the radio. Nothing stops you from recording every song played on your favourite radio station, then compiling your own albums or playlists. Yet very few people, if anyone, does that.
Re:What about future authors? (Score:4, Informative)
Does this Settlement cover Books published in 2009? [googlebooksettlement.com]
Re:What about future authors? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's Google performing a mass indexing of something (it's what they do). Could you imagine what the web would be like if every site had to have opted in to Google's index initially? Not saying it's right or wrong, but just presenting the situation from another perspective.
Re:What about future authors? (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine if instead of just indexing, Google stopped linking to the real website and just presented its cache. You'd never have access to the real site, just Google's copy of it. Imagine how happy webmasters would be then.
They aren't just indexing books, they are allowing them to be read online with Google adverts raking in the money. They have the exclusive right to do this, a monopoly gatekeeper. Books they don't approve of can simply vanish, books they do approve of, get an artificially high page rank, popular books get pay per view.
This sort of power over books should not be in the hands of any single company.
Re:What about future authors? (Score:5, Informative)
This sort of power over books should not be in the hands of any single company.
I don't mean to be snarky, but nothing is stopping you from competing against them. In fact, if Google defends itself from the lawsuits that will probably follow, they may lead the way for other companies to try to provide the same service. I, for one, look forward to having access to millions of books. If they try to do anything along the lines of censorship (like you fear) another company will swoop in and provide a better service.
Re:What about future authors? (Score:4, Insightful)
You missed the point. Google have a deal with publishers, you, Joe Nobody, would not even be able to make an appointment to see an individual publisher's secretary's dog, let alone try and do a deal with an entire industry.
This move is going to get google into the DoJ monopoly spotlight. Perhaps if all the books were public domain and copyright laws changed to have sane limits, we'd be in a different position, but that clearly isn't going to happen.
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It's real easy.
Put all those books online, just like Google, and I'm sure somebody's lawyer will appear shortly. Then point at their previous settlement and say "I'll take the same terms, thanks".
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You missed the point. Google have a deal with publishers, you, Joe Nobody, would not even be able to make an appointment to see an individual publisher's secretary's dog, let alone try and do a deal with an entire industry.
That's correct. However, the OP's comment is also correct. This opens the door for competition specifically because it's monopolistic. That is, Google knows full well that they can't be allowed to be the only player with access to this material, and that the next guy (Bing?) to come along can just say, "dear publisher, please write me a contract granting me access to your books on the same terms as Google or I will follow up my lawsuit with a trip to the DoJ, explaining the nature of your anti-competitive
Re:What about future authors? (Score:4, Funny)
>...you, Joe Nobody, would not even be able to make an appointment to see an individual publisher's secretary's dog...
Actually, I did. The dog is a good chap from Germany, apparently from a family that raised sheep. I didn't get to stay long, but I got a sound bite from him anyway.
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I don't mean to be snarky, but nothing is stopping you from competing against them.
You mean other than their established net presence, their billions of dollars, and their deal with the Author's Guild? Yeah, if you completely ignore all that nothing is stopping you from competing on a level playing field against them!
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We must not let google publish these books, because they might make choices about which ones to spend their resources publishing!
Far better that nobody can get copies of any of them.
</sarcasm>
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Are they really "allowing them to be read online"? You sure about that? The way the system currently works, the default for copyrighted works and works in print appears to be "No preview available", "Limited preview" or "Snippet view". Only older books (and not even all older books) and a small number of apparently self-published books seem to be available in full view.
And as for people reading books online: why wouldn't they simply read the book standing in a bookshop? It would be just as painful reading W
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Books they don't approve of can simply vanish, books they do approve of, get an artificially high page rank, popular books get pay per view.
Considering the present status of the books we're discussing (out of print, rights holder unknown, etc etc), "vanish" only means "back to status quo" and "pay per view" is an improvement in accessibility.
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Because these are orphan works. If no one really claims them anymore, the opt-in rate would be very low.
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Authors Guild Recommends It if You Plan to Sue (Score:5, Informative)
With the deadline approaching for 'opting out' of the Google Books settlement, the Authors Guild has posted an aggressive explanation [authorsguild.org] of who it thinks should do that: no one.
Actually what they said specifically is:
Opting out of the settlement is for authors who want to preserve their right to sue Google themselves. We donâ(TM)t think there are any such authors.
Oh how they doubt the litigious desire of some people that believe their works turn the paper they're printed on to gold.
Re:Authors Guild Recommends It if You Plan to Sue (Score:5, Insightful)
The settlement is for a bogus lawsuit.
The problem is this: Google has the ability to pay their way out of this nuisance lawsuit. Others do not. Thus Google ends up with a defacto monopoly.
From the author's perspective, however, there is no ability to pursue a bogus lawsuit to a conclusion more favorable than free money they shouldn't be getting in the first place.
Of course William Morris is against it. The settlement is bad for them and bad for our society. It's bad for authors, even. But the only thing worse for authors is opting out of the settlement.
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Of course William Morris is against it. The settlement is bad for them and bad for our society. It's bad for authors, even.
It also angers the twin gods Yun-Yammka and Yun-Harla, stops it from ever raining in Arizona again, and will make Sergey Brin immortal. If you show me the arguments in favour of your statement, I'll show you mine.
Re:Authors Guild Recommends It if You Plan to Sue (Score:4, Funny)
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Paging Harlan Ellison [wikipedia.org], Harlan Ellison to the controversy please.
Ugh. Please, no. Ellison is incapable of having a useful discussion. His only desire is to irritate whoever happens to be his audience. I don't mind people who are incendiary when they have a point, but Ellison is just incendiary for the sake of it.
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Oh how they doubt the litigious desire of some people that believe their works turn the paper they're printed on to gold.
Or maybe they believe that if someone wants to use their work to sell ads and make money that they should be compensated for it.
The non-competitive product argument is total BS (Score:4, Insightful)
These fucks are too lazy to scan the books for themselves and are bitter that Google is investing the man-power to do so.
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Or they may lack the resources to digitize their works in a form that they would prefer.
The truth of the matter is that Google isn't what it used to be and despite the constant repeating of the mantra "Don't be evil" the way it's currently viewed certainly isn't as positive as it was just a few years ago. Having a uni-polar world where google is king is in staunch opposition to the spir
Re:The non-competitive product argument is total B (Score:5, Insightful)
Remind me why monopoly is bad, again?
I thought the whole point was that monopoly is bad for the consumer who gets stuck with shitty product because no one can compete fairly and bring better products in the game. So here we are, with a gazillion books sitting there with no one to bring them to the people the way Google is trying to, while everyone else bitches and moans about one thing or the other. Pardon my antipathy to the reasons like being lazy or not being resourceful enough, but at the end of the day I would really like it if those books were easily accessible to me and to everyone else.
Here's a thought: Let Google become a monopoly here. We get a nice new service. Once the service is there others would like to compete. *Then* we can bring the anti-monopoly whip out and beat Google senseless. In the meantime either get off your asses and get something similar done, or stop whining about why Google doing this or that is bad because no one else will be able to do it once Google has a monopoly. We will cross that bridge when we get there.
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Once Google has an established monopoly there is nothing stopping them charging for access. They become the gate keepers to millions of books. Meanwhile their rivals a non profit making Project Gutenburg will be out of business because they used to scan orphaned works, and this deal prevents them from continuing.
This is not about laziness, Google just did this without bothering with permission, and then sent lawyers only billionares can afford in to steam roller an insane settlement, that no one else will e
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If you're upset about this settlement whine and moan to the publishers.
THEY are the villans here.
They're just like the music labels. They're mindlessly greedy and stupid
and willing to hand over a monopoly on a silver platter to avoid the
slightest bit of offense to their sense of artistic megalomania.
The publishers are creating the Frankenstein here.
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So, you are with this Guild of bad faith, or you really want these orphaned works to be accessible ? In the latter case, isn't that an advancement that finally someone is able to hold on against the angry publishers whining and suing threats ?
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While we like to think we're the center of the universe, we aren't. As for orphaned works I don't think Project Gutenberg USA has any official stance on them, at least when I search them the only orphaned works item that comes up is an ebook [gutenberg.org] published in 2008.
Re:The non-competitive product argument is total B (Score:5, Insightful)
Reminds me of when people claimed gmail was a monopoly and I had to beat them with a stick while repeating "Being good enough that everyone prefers your free service to other competing free services is NOT A MONOPOLY".
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"Being good enough that everyone prefers your free service to other competing free services is NOT A MONOPOLY".
I usually explain this as: "gmail is as much a monopoly as the democraticly elected president is a dictator".
Yes, not only the obvious part is analogous.
Monopolistic practices (Score:2)
If Google's entire business were Gmail then offering it's service for free is fine. But if Google makes money in other areas and then uses that money to prop up a free email service that kills any other company trying to do business in email, that might not be fine. And if Google gains power from it's free (as in beer) email service that strengthens its position in the business area where it already has a monopoly, then things really start smelling rotten.
I love Google and I don't think they have a monopo
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A few quotes on the subject by Adam Smith:
... is a great enemy to good management.
Monopoly
The price of monopoly is upon every occasion the highest which can be got.
Clearly things have changed in the last two hundred years, but the basic precepts of sociology and human behavior remain mostly the same in this regard.
I certainly don't disagree that the service is wonderful boon to the average person -- I use it rather often and am thankful that it's there -- but
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Sure there is an "evil/bad" monopoly here but it's not the one you think.
Google's "dreaded monopoly" here is simply an extension of the powers
granted to the relevant publishers and authors through copyright.
Without that underlying state sanction, The Publishers Guild would be
in no position to dictate terms to Google or otherwise frighten off
small time competitors.
It's not Google that needs to be reigned in here, it's copyright.
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It's not Google that needs to be reigned in here, it's copyright.
Your right, and copyright reform [ajs.com] isn't nearly as hard as one might think. The problem is pushing companies like Disney and Time/Warner (these companies because they are some of the largest lobbyists for copyright "protections" being increased) into accepting that copyright reform is actually good for their businesses.
A monopoly is not necessarily evil or illegal (Score:1)
Remind me why monopoly is bad, again?
It's not. You guys are missing something key here: It's not illegal to have a monopoly. Natural monopolies exist all the time. If I invent a new WhizBang Gizmo Ultimate, and there's nothing else on the market that does what it does, and I've patented by WhizBang Gizmo Ultimate, then I have a monopoly on WhizBang Gizmo Ultimates. Even if this WhizBang Gizmo Ultimate becomes something very, very important to society.
When Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston released VisiCalc in 1979, they had a monopoly on spr
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Once the service is there others would like to compete. *Then* we can bring the anti-monopoly whip out and beat Google senseless.
Except that Google has nothing to do with it. There's nothing anti-competitive about their contract with the publishers. The only anti-competitive move would be the publishers refusing to write the same contract for everyone else who wants to scan and display orphaned works.
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If you look at the context, I wasn't replying to "Google *is* a monopoly" but rather to "Google *will be* a monopoly".
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Having a uni-polar world where google is king is in staunch opposition to the spirit of the free market
Copyrighted works have nothing to do with a free market; any and all 'monopoly' power that Google obtains here is directly derived from copyright.
In a free market anyone would be free to scan and publish anything, any way they like. If there was social desire to fund authors beyond the free market, the easiest and probably most efficient way to be to slap a per-revenue levy off sales/copies/whatever going
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Is a de-facto monopoly still "evil" if it is providing a good or service which previously wasn't available? It's not like Google swooped in and used their wealth and market dominance to crush smaller competitors in the digital book search industry. In addition, everyone is still free to visit libraries, use inter-library loan services, etc. so Google didn't do anything to undermine the "competing" services which were already available. Isn't this type of innovation exactly in line with the spirit of a fr
Re:The non-competitive product argument is total B (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the objection is that this settlement only allows Google to do this. Anyone else has to not only scan the books in, but also get sued by the Authors Guild and then make the same class-action settlement.
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I'm not so sure about that. Once the ground has been trod by Google, the Authors Guild should be looking at anyone else who wants to do this as "extra cash", that should make it easier to get a follow up deal with them. It'd be expensive, but they should be willing to skip the lawsuit part.
Essentially, once it's been done once and deemed "legal" then there's nothing preventing them from cutting similar deals with anyone else who wants to do it to. After all why settle for one giant pile of cash when you
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But it isn't up to the Authors Guild. Some are saying that this is possible because a court is sanctioning it as a settlement to a class action lawsuit, but even that is a stretch, without the fig-leaf of a class action, there's no way the Authors Guild (who are only one party to the class action) has the right to make deals like this.
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The Author's Guild can't make the same deal with people; the deal is only possible via a class-action settlement, because that's the only means by which a deal affecting the right to sue over a potential claim can be put into place where the unknown individual affected parties have to opt out
Re:The non-competitive product argument is total B (Score:2)
It has nothing to do with scanning books.
Google gets sued and comes up with a settlement agreement to pay off those suing.
Little company X does the same thing and gets sued, but can't fight the suit and can't afford to pay off a settlement.
Because the grounds for suing are completely bogus, Google is essentially buying a monopoly with their settlement. They are now establishing that anyone who wants to do what they are doing will have to pay hush money to avoid a lawsuit.
Big expensive hush money for fair us
rights unknown? (Score:3, Interesting)
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If the original author died without any children or a spouse it becomes even more difficult to determine who should have the rights. Personally I think if no-one can say for sure who owns the work, then the world should be in the public domain.
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Too easy for a publisher to move your work into the Public Domain that way. Which is good for them, not so good for your heirs.
And while you may not approve of a man's heirs making money from his work years after his death, I somehow doubt you'd approve of a publish
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Because losing a monopoly on the work instead of simply giving the heirs a payout is definitely going to net the publisher more money and would definitely not backfire.
I'm also NOT against heirs making money from their parents/uncles/whatevers (well, I am to a degree, but that's another discussion). I was talking about instances where no-one knows who the rights owner. I even said such cases are most likely to occur when the author
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*and they claim computer people have jargon.
Re:rights unknown? (Score:5, Interesting)
Now you can see there's gonna be an issue with this, like you just raised, which is: what if nobody knows who the copyright owner is anymore? Maybe the publisher went out of business, and we're not sure what business now owns the assets. Maybe the author died and didn't leave a will and now grandkids in six states own the copyright and don't know about it. -- link [fictioncircus.com]
That kind of clears up what orphan books are, but still, if no one knows who owns the rights, who are the people complaining?
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Ever have that dream where a long lost uncle in your family that was filthy rich and you never knew about keels over and leaves you as their heir in the will?
The folk complaining are the ones who still have that dream or the ones who make money off them [wikipedia.org].
And the folk who Hate (with a capital H) the idea that Google is doing it. And the folk who wanted to do what Google is doing but didn't have the balls/means to do it first.
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if no one knows who owns the rights, who are the people complaining?
The people who will end up competing with free orphaned books.
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That kind of clears up what orphan books are, but still, if no one knows who owns the rights, who are the people complaining?
I gather much of the issue some authors have with this agreement stems from a couple of concerns:
1. They feel they're being steamrollered into giving up some rights. For example, the agreement has provisions that allow Google to sell electronic access to works, and share the revenue with the authors. By signing on, they lose the right to negotiate individually with Google. Also,
Lawrence Lessig (Score:2)
According to Lawrence Lessig [blip.tv] (6 min 30 in), some 75% of all books are orphaned. It's legally impossible to do anything with those works, because the copyright holder can't be reached for permission.
I think you're suggesting that that should be no problem, because if the copyright owner can't be found, who's going to sue you for using their work? The problem is that you don't know they're not going to suddenly appear and sue you afterward, and for this reason no right-minded company will publish/broadcast/p
Re:rights unknown? (Score:5, Interesting)
The writer retains the rights. Google came to an agreement with a guild that does not represent most writers to hand over EXCLUSIVE online rights to themselves even if the author didn't agree to it.
If the author doesn't like the deal, he needs to find out about it, and he may be living in isolation in a jungle somewhere, and then he needs to opt out by a deadline.
This completely screws other places offering free online books such as Gutenburg, because Google now owns the rights to pretty much all literature online. It's an EXCLUSIVE deal that means only google has the right to scan orphaned works. The only way anyone else can do it, is to scan the books anyway, and hope to win a billion dollar lawsuit from both Google and the Authors Guild.
To "help" authors make up their minds Google offered a bribe. Sign up before the deadline and get a share in the advertising revenue made from the orhpaned works, sign up aferwards and you don't get that benefit. Change your mind after a year or so, and it's too late. The data will be in the database permanently.
Google is trying to be a monopoly, and not a single piece of their behaviour appears to be concerned with authors, libraries and archivists. It's a disgrace and I look forward to them explaining the land grab of European author's rights to the EU.
Re:rights unknown? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I don't think Google can obtain exclusive rights to public domain works through this maneuver.
They can't. Bringing up Gutenberg is a complete red herring.
Re:rights unknown? (Score:5, Informative)
Gutenburg wants to be able to scan orphaned works too. They have been campaigning legally for years. Gutenburg isn't a billion dollar advertising agency so can't afford the lawsuit that google pulled off. But now they are watching in horror as Google gets an exclusive deal meaning non profits such as Gutenburg and other libraries and archives are locked out. The law will never change now because congress will argue the problem is solved - Google is running it.
Re:rights unknown? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, what is the chance that someone with no money will get Congress to change copyright law purely to benefit the public? You say they have been campaigning for years, to which I say they could campaign for a thousand years without getting anywhere. Copyright law is controlled by the behemoths. In this case, the behemoth is concerned with something other than restricting the public access for a change.
I am perfectly happy with Gutenburg rather than Google getting these rights. But I know it would never happen.
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This license doesn't prevent competitors from getting into that job, "EXCLUSIVE deal" here means that Google is able to defend itself against the angry anti-progress publishers.
Besides most of these orphaned works would be public domain if lobbies hadn't exte
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Google came to an agreement with a guild that does not represent most writers to hand over EXCLUSIVE online rights to themselves even if the author didn't agree to it.
But surely the Guild doesn't have any rights to hand over? A quick look through the chapter headings [copyright.gov] of US copyright law doesn't indicate any provision for licensing bodies. Is this actually a case of a class action settlement being forcibly applied to anyone who doesn't opt out?
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Yes. That's how class actions usually work. But it's a pretty serious abuse of process in this case, IMO.
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From the perspective of someone in a country which doesn't have class actions, it nearly always looks like a serious abuse of process.
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I do find is scary that anyone can just up and sell my rights away with no legal grounds. That is beyond fucked up. What is to stop me from selling google the rights to all music and movies (besides a huge lawsuit that I can fight with the sales money). I don't get this at all.
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If the author doesn't like the deal, he needs to find out about it, and he may be living in isolation in a jungle somewhere, and then he needs to opt out by a deadline.
As copyright was explicitly established for the public good, what societal or constitutional interest is served in allowing an uninterested author to effectively lock up books they no longer care about? I'm about as conservative as you can get, but I can't see why anyone should be able to prevent Google (or any other group) from making abandoned works available. Society gets access to more information, and the authors and publishers don't lose a single penny that they hadn't already written off.
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That's a very good question. Constitutionally, in the US only authors can hold copyright and only inventors can hold patents. Unfortunately the legislators don't give a rat's ass about the Constitution, despite the fact that they are sworn to uphold it. You should not be able to sell copyrights, you should only be able to contract for their publication (i.e., "give me $n and I allow you to distribute").
Dead authors' works should ALL be in the public domain. Live authors' works should always be under their c
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Seventh and ninth amendments.
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Not being particularly well versed in US law or even your constitution, but wouldn't that mean that when an author or inventor dies that no one has exclusive rights to their work? And that the current copyright length is in fact unconstituti
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Yes, you are correct. Unfortunately, Stanford Professor Lawrence Lessig argued the "limited times" point to the US Supreme Court and lost. SCOTUS ruled that "limited" means whatever the legislature says it means.
I don't think they've ruled on the death thing, maybe Prof. Lessig could get a win on that one. That is, if Creative Commons ever hires him again (actually I think he was pro bono on that case).
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HIghest and best use (Score:3, Insightful)
Good ruling that is taking books sitting as orphans outside of a users/readers reach and making them freely accessible.
Out of print books (Score:2)
If a book is out of print, what's the point in indexing it?
I mean, from the users point of view, they can search an out of print book, and even see _some_ of the pages, but they cannot buy the book. Seems kinda pointless.
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Out of print doesn't mean unavailable... (Score:2)
Don't forget about second hand book sellers and public libraries.
The guild part is misleading (Score:2)
If this settlement doesn't pass, the legal fees will probably bankrupt it forever, causing [the Authors Guild] to disappear for good in a puff of ink-stained smoke.
Well now the Authors Guild's stance makes a lot more sense. This settlement is more self preservation then in the interest of the authors.
We believe that giving Google special treatment does not appear to be the way to foster a competitive market place to the benefit of you, our authors.
If it is only orphaned books then what market is that. Its not like they are trying to sell them to consumers now. They might as well release it to the public domain, but no author would go for that. They figure the little money they make licensing it is worth it.
Both sides are spinning it, then? (Score:2)
The publisher's side is written as if Google is publishing the whole work, instead of merely providing a search engine. After finding the work you'll still have to locate a copy on the used books market, or public libraries.
Or even, if enough people are looking for the same book, it might be possible to do a new printing.
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Well now the Authors Guild's stance makes a lot more sense. This settlement is more self preservation then in the interest of the authors.
Okay, I'm as lazy as the next guy, lazier maybe. But I'm not too lazy to read the linked headlines (even clicked on one accidentally... I need palm detection) and one of them says that the Author's Guild gets half the money that's supposed to be going to the authors... you know, kind of like giving to UNICEF or the Red Cross. (Actually, the Red Cross has a pretty good conversion rate, much better than PETA or WWF for example.)
Of course they don't want you to opt-out... they want to get PAID. But giving you
I only buy textbooks that I see on GoogleBooks now (Score:2)
I think publishers would be nothing short of deranged to not want to have their books on Google Books. I have bought all my textbooks based on what I saw on Google Books, since it appeared. That's right, all of them. We're talking (sadly) expensive textbooks on nanotechnology, microfulidics and silicon microtechnology (as well as some materials science). Google Books is by far the BEST marketing tool that a publisher could imagine.
James Glieck's Chaos (Score:2)
i recommend giving a read to James Gleick's Chaos.
Three Words (Score:1)
Three Words: "Follow the money."
Lawsuits waiting to happen (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds to me like a bunch of lawsuits just waiting to happen. Last I checked, the law doesn't give any rights to anyone to take a work that isn't theirs. If Google takes a work, and the author misses the deadline, what's stopping that author from suing?
Absolutely nothing, as far as I can tell. Some crazy agreement with a guild that probably has nothing to do with the author in the first place? Yeah, right. That'll hold up in court the same way as if I sold my neighbor's car while he was on vacation. 'I've got a contract!' doesn't mean anything if what you're doing is illegal.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
the law doesn't give any rights to anyone to take a work that isn't theirs.
Legally, the issue may be the underpinnings of class action lawsuits [wikipedia.org]. The thought is that it would be detrimental to the legal system to have thousands of different suits all on the exact same subject. So instead of tying hundred of judges for years on the single issue, the concept of "class action" was created, where by a single suit if brought on behalf of a class of people. There's no particular requirement needed to be the initiating claimant in a class action lawsuit - anyone can do it, as long as the
Re: (Score:1)
if you want to make them stop, you'll have to bring your own, separate lawsuit, with all the costs and hassles that entails.
So I doubt they're will be many "the Author's Guild doesn't represent me" lawsuits, or if there is, the judges will toss them quickly, citing the valid legal status of class action lawsuits.
I think that's the important point here. As a small author if you don't opt out you may see some small monetary benefit. If you opt out, you'll see no benefit and realistically won't be able to gain anything from Google. You're too small to negotiate anything useful with Google (they'll probably just remove all references to your work) and its also not worth suing Google on your own (you'd probably eventually just get grouped into another class action).
Mod Parent Up (Score:4, Informative)
Here's the relevant section from the wikipedia article:
Due process requires in most cases that notice describing the class action be sent, published, or broadcast to class members. As part of this notice procedure, there may have to be several notices, first a notice giving class members the opportunity to opt out of the class, i.e. if individuals wish to proceed with their own litigation they are entitled to do so, only to the extent that they give timely notice to the class counsel or the court that they are opting out. Second, if there is a settlement proposal, the court will usually direct the class counsel to send a settlement notice to all the members of the certified class, informing them of the details of the proposed settlement.
Just write this on the first page of your books (Score:1)
robots.txt
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
William Morris Agency Is On Drugs (Score:2)
Or if they're not, maybe they should be. To wit:
"orphan works where the rights owner is unknown"
and
"a monopoly, with unfair bargaining power."
Bargaining with unknown persons? I would think that if one thought they had this ability, they wouldn't need any sort of agreement set, as they could as easily bargain about and/or form a monopoly over unknown books. WTF is William Morris Agency doing by pretending to speak on behalf of unknown writers anyway? You have to be more than moderately known just to talk to
Treaty violation? (Score:2)
The way I understand it, you've got to exempt yourself, through the mechanism to do that here in the US.
If you're an author in another country, you register your copyright THERE, and as long as your country has ratified the same copyright convention as most other western countries, you're done.
Google isn't the next Microsoft - Google is trying to Wal-mart information and IT. Enjoy what's left when they're done.
Monopoly on *what*? (Score:2)
'We believe that the license being given to Google to publish and display with impunity out-of-print "orphan" works [...] will open the door to establishing Google as the most comprehensive database, potentially a monopoly, with unfair bargaining power.'
Translation: it's no fair that Google got off their butts and created a market we weren't interested in, and now we want in on it!
Seriously, someone please explain to me why I should feel any sympathy for the ex-publishers of abandonware? If it was so dang valuable to them, why'd they walk away from it in the first place?
Re: (Score:2)
The monopoly part is that Google is now legally allowed to display out-of-print works, but other companies are not.
The license is for _only_ Google.
Easy Solution (Score:1)
Opt-out/objection process in class actions sucks (Score:2)
I was stuck in a class action catch-22 about a decade ago. A service provider had altered the nature of the service without providing notice (as required by their own contract). After nearly 2 years of legal BS, they finally made a settlement offer. They would buy back the equipment of dissatisfied customers. Pro-rated, of course, bottoming out at 25% for equipment more than 2 years old. By this time, they'd altered the description of their service and the vast majority of the members of the class had
Ok... (Score:1)
I know there's a lot of details and legal wrangling and worse...but let me just speak for a few million people:
Fuck your stupid copyrights, nobody cares about anything you wrote or it would not be orphaned and out of print. The free market you cherish so much has betrayed you and left you for dead. The world would sooner let your works rot into nothing than pay you a penny for your tripe or recognize you for your efforts.
You stupid greedy money-grubbing whores! I hope you choke on your wishful copyright dre