[WikiEN-l] Google Books settlement reached

[Carcharoth]

On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 2:17 PM, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 3:34 AM, Carcharoth <carcharothwp at 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