Thread: Authors Guild and Google reach settlement: Millions of scanned books to be available.
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Old 10-29-2008, 12:26 AM   #9
jharker
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney View Post
One bit not mentioned here: as part of the deal, Google is contributing $125 million to the creation of a Book Rights Repository. Part of the problem with making any book available is getting the rights to do so. With publishers going out of business or being acquired, it can be hard to discover who actually holds the rights to a particular title. There's a fair amount of work technically still under copyright and requiring permission to make available, but who do you ask? The author is dead, the publisher is out of business, and nobody knows who handles the estate...
Yes. Part of what I like about this deal is that books become part of the system by default, and any royalties are automatically collected and held in trust for the author until a long time has passed. So basically, it's a way to make the books available, respect copyright, and collect royalties, even if the copyright holder can't be found. It's a great win for everyone who gets access to those books, and yet still a win for copyright holders too.
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