Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy
I'm interested in who is listed in the actual lawsuit.
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Links to the lawsuit PDFs are at
http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/...ment_agreement. It's amazingly difficult to find out who is actually affected.
1.142 “Settlement Class” means all Persons that, as of the Notice
Commencement Date, have a Copyright Interest in one or more Books or Inserts. All
Settlement Class members are either members of the Author Sub-Class or the Publisher
Sub-Class, or both. Excluded from the Settlement Class are Google, the members of
Google’s Board of Directors and its executive officers.
1.38 “Copyright Interest” means (a) ownership (including joint ownership) of a
United States copyright interest or (b) an exclusive license of a United States copyright
interest, in each case only if and to the extent the interest is implicated by a use that is
authorized or for which compensation could be payable under this Settlement Agreement.
Non-US copyrights aren't covered at all, apparently.
The text leaves an interesting hole in the settlement: Google's board of directors, even if published authors, are exempt automatically. It's interesting to ponder what this means in the future--if Google hires an author as an executive officer, can s/he immediately sue for copyright infringement as if s/he'd filed an opt-out statement in time? Are Google's current officers exempt from their future books being part of the process? Are Google's copyrighted works (employee manuals etc) exempt forever?
Gaps like that are clear indications that this problem should be addressed by legislation, not a corporate lawsuit.