amazon sends a note to google books.. we hate you.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by nekokami

How would you legislate something like this internationally? Add it as an amendment somehow to the Berne Convention?

From what I know (which is quite limited), there isn't really a unified EU or international copyright system that would cover this. It would have to be -- or to be more precise, will be -- dealt with on a country-by-country basis (as are the copyright lengths).

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Yes, I know how class action lawsuits work. I'd be curious to see who the members of the class are in the legal filings though, not just in a FAQ from Google.

It's pretty clear that it's anyone whose books Google has scanned, and has not opted out of the settlement. There is no indication that it only applies to members of the Author's Guild -- e.g. text indicating that leaving the Guild is equivalent to opting out. They're barely mentioned in either the FAQ or the actual Settlement.

If you're sufficiently bored, the full text of the Settlement is here.

[zerospinboson]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/te.../09google.html

[nekokami]

That's an interesting article. Particularly this bit:

“We have never said that the same kinds of outcomes would not be available to Microsoft or Amazon or anyone else who is willing to make the same investments,” said Richard Sarnoff, former chairman of the Association of American Publishers and co-chairman of the American unit of Bertelsmann, the parent company of Random House. “We have a road map to do it now.”

While it may be the case that this agreement doesn't stand up in the courts, I would be willing to bet that any subsequent agreements are going to end up quite similar to this one, making this more of a delaying action on the part of Google's competitors than anything else.

Google's scans aren't all that great, but presently they're the only way some of this content is available. Seems to me that Microsoft, Yahoo, et al could compete on the quality of the scans. Other areas open to competition are the output formats, searchability, etc. I'm not seeing where the anti-competitive aspect comes in, frankly.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

It's pretty clear that it's anyone whose books Google has scanned, and has not opted out of the settlement. There is no indication that it only applies to members of the Author's Guild -- e.g. text indicating that leaving the Guild is equivalent to opting out. They're barely mentioned in either the FAQ or the actual Settlement.

If you're sufficiently bored, the full text of the Settlement is here.

I'm interested in who is listed in the actual lawsuit.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by nekokami

While it may be the case that this agreement doesn't stand up in the courts, I would be willing to bet that any subsequent agreements are going to end up quite similar to this one....

You are likely correct, but without actual legislation there is no guarantee that anyone else will get the same terms.

Originally Posted by nekokami

I'm not seeing where the anti-competitive aspect comes in, frankly.

A few possibilities:

1) Google has a massive head start over potential competitors, both in terms of scans and, if the settlement is approved, legal hurdles.
2) There aren't many non-government competitors with the resources and inclination to take on a similar project.
3) Unless or until someone else strikes a similar settlement, only Google will have the right to basically publish and distribute an ebook of out-of-print materials without having to get the author's explicit permission. E.g. Barnes & Noble would be required to hunt down an author, get permission, and then make the ebook; Google can just sell their existing scan.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

You are likely correct, but without actual legislation there is no guarantee that anyone else will get the same terms.

A few possibilities:

1) Google has a massive head start over potential competitors, both in terms of scans and, if the settlement is approved, legal hurdles.
2) There aren't many non-government competitors with the resources and inclination to take on a similar project.
3) Unless or until someone else strikes a similar settlement, only Google will have the right to basically publish and distribute an ebook of out-of-print materials without having to get the author's explicit permission. E.g. Barnes & Noble would be required to hunt down an author, get permission, and then make the ebook; Google can just sell their existing scan.

1. That's (MS's) own fault. (and anyone else's. Anyway, this applies to any industry that requires an initial investment. Why is it relevant?) There are no hurdles apart from that investment, which others are unwilling to make. I don't see the principle at work behind this argument.
2. Indeed. And considering we're talking about the USA, people will likely be wary to let the government do this (alternatively, one could legislate his way to equal access for all, when it turns out Google is unreasonable).
3. Right now, nothing is being done with OOP orphan works, specifically because the author is missing. How is it a turn for the worse? The point being that most of these OOP works are being ignored anyway, so how likely is it that this will really matter, statistically speaking? Sure, it might frustrate them in 1-2 cases, but really, who cares?
Lots of industries are anti-competitive; why would you want the prevention of a formation of a potentially competition-less, niche industry like OOP/orphan work printing because it will be hard for the competition to gain a foothold without investing themselves? Again, there is no reason to suspect a court will grant Google their rights, and then use that as an anti-precedent to subsequently forbid all others from doing the same; in fact, it's fairly unlikely this will happen.

Disclaimer: I'm not at all saying I trust google, but I don't really see what the disadvantage is. If you really want access to a book, you can always see where Google scanned its copy, and request that via ILL (or whatever).

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

I'm interested in who is listed in the actual lawsuit.

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.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

1) Google has a massive head start over potential competitors, both in terms of scans and, if the settlement is approved, legal hurdles.

Microsoft had started a similar project years ago, before canceling it. They already had 750,000 books scanned in at the time of project end. If Microsoft HAD NOT decided to STOP their book scanning project, Google would not have had a head start.

[markbot]

google books is an abomination. the optical character recognition is terrible. i don't want to read through mistakes in the greatest works of literature.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by markbot

google books is an abomination. the optical character recognition is terrible. i don't want to read through mistakes in the greatest works of literature.

Yet you do buy books that don't offer "the tactile pleasure of a bound book". Honestly, why not give them a chance at least on the OCR part? "abomination" with reference to simple mistakes is one of those words that lumps you in the camp of silly over-emotional people.