The Google Book Search Settlement has been much in the news recently, with the Internet Archive, Philip K. Dick’s heirs, consumer groups and Microsoft registering their objections to the search giant’s agreement with authors and publishers. And now Justice Department anti-trust lawyers are meeting with Google about the settlement, raising the possibility of a full-blown anti-trust court showdown between the government and the world’s biggest search and advertising company.
Google Books lets users search and read portions of millions of books.
It’s a complicated story combining copyright law, anti-trust issues and the odd problem of orphan books.
It’s als
o the story of one company’s attempt to create the largest and most comprehensive library in the history of the world.
Here’s Wired.com’s guide through the thicket of the Google Book Search Settlement.
Google is a search engine, right? What do words printed on dead trees have to do with it?
Google claims its mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” If that’s your goal, then a library full of books makes you salivate in hunger for the knowledge held inside. So in partnership with major university libraries, Google began scanning and digitizing millions of books in 2002, from ones like Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales that are no longer copyrighted to the Harry Potter series to books whose authors and publishers cannot be located. The idea is simple, and audacious. Make the library of all libraries by converting every book ever published into an e-book that can be indexed, searched, read — and sold — online.
That’s cool! Where can I find this?
Go to Google Book Search, for one. You might also see book snippets in Google’s Web search results.
How many books are in there already?
Google has scanned more than 7 million books as of April 2009.
Can I download or buy old books through Google right now?
Yes and no. Google lets you download any book it has scanned that is not in copyright in the U.S. anymore – books that have fallen into the public domain. For other books, it shows up to 20 percent of the text, and usually includes links to places to buy it online.
What about new books? Are they included?
Most are, but that’s through Google’s Partner project that lets publishers and authors decide how much or how little of their books go into Google’s index, as well as letting them get a portion of the money from ads shown next to their book pages.
How did Google get away with scanning 7 million library books?
Well, there’s no problem with scanning millions of public domain books so long as you have the cash, cool technology and cachet to convince some of the world’s best libraries to work with you. As for in-copyright books, Google says it has the right to scan and index them, and show snippets online, under the Fair Use doctrine, which carves out exceptions to copyright holders’ rights. Being a massive company, mostly loved by users, also helps.
So could I go into the library and legally rip every music CD and video they have, and put snippets of them online, under the Fair Use doctrine?
That’s an interesting question. How good is your lawyer and how high is your bank balance?
Then why did the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers sue Google in 2005?
Well, once they saw Google using snippets of the books in search results and making money of it, they decided they deserved some of it. After all, they wrote the books.
Why did Google settle in 2007 if it has the right to do this? Especially since they have to pay $125 million in lawyer fees and past royalties?
Well, the settlement gives Google the legal cover to digitize all books written to date that are still in copyright. For books that are copyrighted but out-of-print, Google gets to show 20% of the book online and sell digital copies of it, keeping 37 percent. For books in-print and copyrighted, Google gets the right to scan the books and use them for research, and can do more with permission.
What about anthologies or photos licensed for use in a book? How does that work?
Well, that’s complicated. That’s partially why the agreement is 334 pages long.
Why should I care about the settlement at all?
Google. Monopoly. World’s Greatest Library. You do like books, don’t you?
Who manages authors and publishers’ rights if Google is going to be advertising next to book pages and selling books?
The newly-created Book Rights Registry is in charge of finding rights holders, collecting and disbursing payouts, setting prices and negotiating other deals. It’s not unlike the ASCAP system that collects royalties for song writers, musicians and publishers.
What about libraries?
Every library in the country will get one free subscription for one computer that will let users read and print any page from the full text of all the books in Google’s catalog, excluding books still in-print. Beyond that, libraries and institutions can order additional subscriptions. The demand is likely to be high. Very high.
What is an author’s role in all this?
Rights holders can go to Book Rights Registry’s database and choose whether to let Google include their works, sell them online, and show snippets and ads. They can also opt-out and reserve the right to negotiate their own terms or sue Google later if Google includes their works.
How can Google get a monopoly? Can’t the Book Registry negotiate with other entities that want to do the same thing?
Yes, but only for those authors it can speak for – in other words, the known authors of copyrighted books.
Is the opposition to the settlement all about the so-called orphans?
Yes. There are more orphans than in a Dickens novel. Google won’t say how many there are. But UC Berkeley Professor Pamela Samuelson estimates that 70 percent of books that are still in copyright have rights holders that can’t be found.
What’s the problem with orphans?
Copyright infringement can be expensive – up to $150,000 per violation. So if you scan an old book and start selling copies of it, or displaying chunks of it on the web, and the orphan’s father shows up one day waving a paternity test in your direction, you could face a mean copyright infringement suit. Unless you are Google: Since all U.S. book copyright holders are now plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Google gets liability protection from authors who abandoned their books by not registering in its books database. If they show up later, all they can do is collect a little cash, change their book price or ask Google to stop selling the book.
Could Google end up with the most comprehensive online library in the world? Won’t libraries place thousands of subscriptions due to overwhelming demand? And since there’s only one vendor (Google) and the Book Registry will set the price, won’t the price be incredibly high? Or at least climb that way over time?
Bingo.
Why can’t Amazon or Yahoo or Microsoft go to the Book Registry and get an orphans waiver like Google is getting?
The registry can set rates and negotiate contracts for all authors, unless they opt-out. But signing away unknown people’s rights to sue? Only a judge in a class-action lawsuit (or Congress) can do that.
If another company wants to digitize, display and use orphan works without the Sword of Damocles hanging over its head, it has to start digitizing without permission, get sued by a reasonable plaintiff and the go through this settlement process again?
Exactly.
That’s ridiculous. Isn’t there a better solution to the orphan works problem?
Yes. For one, Congress could step up and pass a law about orphan works. But the last time Congress passed a substantial law about the length of copyrights it extended them for 20 more years — keeping more and more books from reaching the public domain. Don’t expect much help here.
Is a lot of money at stake?
If you think all the value in digitizing the world’s knowledge will come from selling out-of-print books as e-books for an iPhone, you’re not thinking like Google is. Think of all the subscriptions that universities and colleges and high schools and corporations will need to buy. Think of how search could be improved if you can test your algorithms on a huge digitized swath of the world’s knowledge. Think of the data that could be mined from that index, or how a question-and-answer service resembling artificial intelligence could be created. Google “the Singularity.” Or better Google Book Search “The Singularity”.
Why does the Justice Department getting involved? Why I am reading that it is investigating?
Remember last fall when the Justice Department was hours from filing an anti-trust lawsuit against Google for its planned ad partnership with Yahoo? That made it very clear that Justice Department considers Google to either be a monopoly, or be very close to being one – at least as far as search advertising is concerned. So when outside groups wrote the Justice Department with concerns about Book Search, it’s not surprising that lawyers there started sniffing around the settlement. Given that Google admits it has met with DoJ lawyers about the settlement and has to do so again, it’s clear this is more than just a passing interest for DoJ lawyers, who could make big names for themselves in the legal world for taking on the search-and-advertising giant.
When does all this end and I get to start browsing the library of the future and buying out-of-print books?
Authors and publishers have until September 4 to opt-out or make their initial choice about what Google can or can’t do with their work. The federal court’s final hearing on the fairness of the settlement comes a month later, on October 7. Then the judge has to rule, which could take months. In the best case scenario for Google, it will have something resembling the library of the future online sometime in 2010, but given the number of lawyers eying this deal and the potential amount of money at issue, one can be pretty sure the legal battle will drag out far into the 2010s.
Credit: The Fight over the Google of All Libraries: A Wired.com FAQ
By Ryan Singel April 30, 2009 | 7:34 pm |