Google Books settlement reached - WikiEN-l

Gwern Branwen

17 Jan 17 Jan

3:17 p.m.

On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 3:34 AM, Carcharoth <carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com> wrote:

It seems a settlement has been reached between Google Books and those taking action against it. Anyone here know what this means in terms of what we do and how we use Google Books? http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/ Carcharoth

I can't speak to the issues of exclusivity everyone was worrying about, but it seems to be a win for Google Books in respect to orphan works: http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/#3 "# In-copyright but out-of-print books Out-of-print books aren’t actively being published or sold, so the only way to procure one is to track it down in a library or used bookstore. When this agreement is approved, every out-of-print book that we digitize will become available online for preview and purchase, unless its author or publisher chooses to "turn off" that title. We believe it will be a tremendous boon to the publishing industry to enable authors and publishers to earn money from volumes they might have thought were gone forever from the marketplace." Notice that it's opt-out, which for a real orphan work means no one will opt-out. Preview is better than nothing, for us. (It was unrealistic to expect Google to be able to offer full downloads.) -- gwern

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Gwern Branwen

5:11 p.m.

On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 9:59 AM, Carcharoth <carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com> wrote:

...

On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 2:17 PM, Gwern Branwen <gwern0(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 3:34 AM, Carcharoth <carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com> wrote:

It seems a settlement has been reached between Google Books and those taking action against it. Anyone here know what this means in terms of what we do and how we use Google Books? http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/ Carcharoth

I can't speak to the issues of exclusivity everyone was worrying about, but it seems to be a win for Google Books in respect to orphan works: http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/#3 "# In-copyright but out-of-print books Out-of-print books aren’t actively being published or sold, so the only way to procure one is to track it down in a library or used bookstore. When this agreement is approved, every out-of-print book that we digitize will become available online for preview and purchase, unless its author or publisher chooses to "turn off" that title. We believe it will be a tremendous boon to the publishing industry to enable authors and publishers to earn money from volumes they might have thought were gone forever from the marketplace." Notice that it's opt-out, which for a real orphan work means no one will opt-out. Preview is better than nothing, for us. (It was unrealistic to expect Google to be able to offer full downloads.)

My question would be: if Google can charge for full downloads of their scans of orphan (out-of-print) works still in copyright, can others do the same? If I had a copy of a work still in copyright but out-of-print, and scanned it, and sold the scans, and then stopped if the publisher contact me (i.e. asked for it to be "switched off") what am I doing differently to what Google are doing? For me, the exciting thing is being able to get full downloads, even if at a price, rather than ordering through a rare or secondhand book website. Dunno what that Google price will be though... Carcharoth

I don't think they're offering downloads, per se. "When this agreement is approved, every out-of-print book that we digitize will become available online for preview and purchase, unless its author or publisher chooses to "turn off" that title." "When this agreement is approved, every out-of-print book that we digitize will become available online for preview and purchase, unless its author or publisher chooses to "turn off" that title." I don't remember ever seeing any downloads offered for any works - just the dead-tree versions. Which implies that the orphan works will get the same treatment. (Still, if they're showing the entire orphan work, means one can download it with some scripting.) -- gwern

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Andrew Gray

7:35 p.m.

2010/1/17 geni <geniice(a)gmail.com>om>:

...

2010/1/17 Gwern Branwen <gwern0(a)gmail.com>om>:

Notice that it's opt-out, which for a real orphan work means no one will opt-out. Preview is better than nothing, for us. (It was unrealistic to expect Google to be able to offer full downloads.)

Are orphan books that common? In most cases they have a clear single author who would have some interest and would likely be traceable no matter what happened to the publisher.

Well, yes and no. Traceable, but not easily traceable. There can easily be a hundred years elapsing between the publication of a book and the expiry of its copyright, which gives a lot of time to lose people. You *can* track down someone given a name from decades back, but for a minor author who didn't get much publicity it's going to be a long, slow, uphill struggle. If they're dead, you need to find their heirs, figure out who actually owns the rights - potentially dozens of people - which takes even longer. And all too often, the trail goes cold. It's informative to look at the equivalent situation in the financial sector - people who owned shares, or insurance policies, or were left money in people's wills, and turned out to be untraceable. In the UK alone, that comes to some fifteen billion pounds - probably more - http://www.uar.co.uk/benefit.htm http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/unclaimedassets_uacc.pdf If that much is sitting around as realisable cash, what hope a few intangible copyrights? -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

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