Gordon Flagg, American Libraries Online
November 18, 2009 http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2009/november2009/revisedgoogle111809.cfm?persistent=&expy_dt=
On November 13, Google, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers filed a revised version of their proposed settlement that had been reached in October of last year. The revised settlement limits the Google Book Search project to works registered with the U.S. Copyright Office or published in the United Kingdom, Australia, or Canada, and addresses the treatment of orphan works, or works where a copyright holder cannot be located. The new proposal also permits rights holders to let their works be distributed at no cost. However, the new settlement seems to have failed to address the antitrust and privacy concerns that drew the largest criticism in the first place, and the concerns of writers and writer’s organizations, who fear that the Google Books program will interfere with author-publisher contractual relationships.
Every time I see an article about the Google Books settlement, the situation has grown more complicated. Looking at the timetable for when the final hearing will take place, I start to glaze over a little. I realize all of these changes are policy, but it’s hard now to visualize the ramifications of an amended agreement that “permits Google to increase the number of terminals that can be used at public libraries to access the database of books”. It’s weird because I forget very quickly that this is a settlement of lawsuits filed against Google for the project, but at the same time I have no clear idea of where the settlement stands in relation to the scope of policy that allows Google to move forward on the Book Search project. I’m not sure what happened between the beginning of the semester when I wrote on the subject, and now. However, I feel like Google has a very profitable plan in mind to keep fighting for it.
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