Quote:
Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer
There is a problem with orphan works in the U.S., and Google and the Writers' Guild had attempted to deal with what is effectively a legislative vacuum by coming to a reasonable accommodation. However, the fact that there is a legislative vacuum doesn't necessarily mean that what Google and the Writers' Guild proposed was a contravention of copyright law.
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It really does.
The Writer's Guild have no legal authority to trade away the rights of authors who have not agreed to give them such authority, and Google has no authority to act as the government and reinterpret legislation.
Copyright is a bargain between the people, represented by their government, and the creator. Neither of those parties were involved in the Google/Writer's Guild negotiations.
Whatever Google and the Writer's Guild cook up between themselves can't reduce the legal rights of unconnected third parties.
Google was planning to sell copies of copyrighted works without the permission of the copyright holder. If that isn't a violation of copyright law, then what is?