It seems that the settlement has not gone through. However, I would not say it is "compulsory sale of copyright" since I don't think that Google would own the copyright. It is rather more a matter of paying the copyright holder for permission to publish the digitalized version without negotiating the price for that permission. The copyright holder would still hold the copyright, and in fact, receive money from Google. The copyright holder could grant permission to others to publish, or publish themselves. The problem is that if Google is making available a PDF version of the work, that will be competing with other publications of it. The fact that you could be inattentive to the need to opt out, then go to republish your work and find that Google is already selling a digitalized version, remitting money to you on a formula that you did not negotiate, is the problem. Your reprint of the book probably wouldn't sell well if it is competing with a digitalized version available through Google. As for the settlement, which has not gone through, it seems to indicate it would apply to all out of print books. For some authors it might be good because it might provide ongoing royalties to people who wrote books, or hold copyright to books, even after all the copies have been sold. These authors receive no royalties when used book sellers resell their books, people read them at the library, or borrow them from friends, or even photocopy them. It would be good for people who want to buy a legal copy of an out of print book, knowing the copyright holder will be compensated. It would be good for people who don't live near big research libraries but want to read obscure books. It probably would not be good for people who sell second hand books. It would be good for people who want to share their book widely for scholarly purposes, but don't want to republish it like Alex. It would allow publication of "orphan works" where the rights holder is unknown, or unlocatable with compensation being made to the rights owner if he or she then comes forward. It is hard to know how all the ramifications of it would work out. I think the judge has sent everyone back to the drawing board now to address all the many issues involved. Meanwhile, there are many public domain books available in full text on the Google book site, and they are somewhat searchable by key word, so that it is possible to search Pepys diary and the book by Daniel DeFoe's A Tour thro the whole island of Great Britain for the word "lace". Devon PS. It is an administrative nightmare. In a message dated 10/5/2009 1:50:18 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
Is the agreement universal, or are Google only making an agreement with the large publishing houses? If the latter, then self-published books, and those publishers who do not sign up to the agreement, will be exempt from it? Devon's view suggests a "compulsory purchase" of copyright once a print run has sold out - rather than the purchase of "expired copyrights" which was first mentioned. Out of print does not equal expired copyright. I think this buyout by Google could apply to books where the copyright has been sold to a publisher (who is willing to sell it on), or books for which the author's content is out of copyright but the publisher is still in business and willing to sell on their rights to the layout, etc. I would also have thought that the agreement would not apply to those books which have already been republished - for example, Mrs Treadwin's book of which Lacet Publications published a facsimile several years ago - the original book is now out of copyright, and so a copy *of the original* could be made, but the facsimile version is still subject to copyright. I thought the Arizona CDs were copyrighted in their CD form, even though the content is either out of copyright or used with permission. Can you imagine the administrative nightmare that would befall Google if every author/copyright holder, for each and every book they held copyright to, contacted Google to opt in or out even within the same couple of months - it would take years to enter all the details into their system and make the payments! -- Jane Partridge - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected] - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]
