Germany and the Google book settlement
By Paul Biba
Received an email from Mike Perry about an interview, in Germany, with the Minister of Justice:
My German contact passed me this link to a Welt Online interview with the German Minister of Justice:
The translation is muddled, but according to my source, the German Ministry of Justice has hired a NY lawyer to help them fight the settlement. I can understand that. Google’s perversion of class action law apparently makes no sense at all under German law.
I just wish German officials would quit talking about German or EU law. This is a U.S. dispute about U.S. copyrights, so what applies is our law. Other countries and foreign authors only come into play because we have treaty obligations with them that determine what our law can or cannot do. At best, German law might mean that German citizens can’t be forced into a U.S. class action without their knowledge or consent.
Thanks, Mike! It is really great when we get articles from our readers!
Update: One of our readers, George Alexander, just sent in a link to his site which has a “real” translation of the interview. George also has an article about the Google Book Settlement and how it is a losing proposition for non-US publishers and readers.
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:31 am
Well, there are only 12 lines concerning the subject Google book settlement in this interview. As I have heard the german government has decided to give a view on the subject by way of amicus curiae.
Publishers over here (where the sony reader just entered the market this year) are furious over the matter: Google has of course digized german language works which are still protected under german copyright law and can be downloaded in germany. So Google is seen very much as violating german and eu-law. And there is much fear of the pure economic power behing this and the facual establishment of new law which Google is trying to achieve in this matter.
You also have to take in account that the structure of the german book market is totally different from the american market. There is a system of fixed prices (so called “Buchpreisbindung”) for practically all individual books i.e. the same title in paperback/hardback has to be sold by all bookstores nationwide for the same price.
With ebooks entering the market the copyright diskussion has heated to unseen degrees in the last few months, as publishers fear for their part of the cake. Google comes up a natural enemy in this.
Regards from Germany
Peter
July 22nd, 2009 at 5:15 am
The Google Book settlement is an excellent deal for authors. They get the vast majority of proceedings for out-of-print-books (normally, they would not get anything), and will still sell their in-print-books exclusively through other channels, unless they give Google an explicit permission.
However, the deal is less attractive for the publishers. Publishers like to live by selling high unit numbers, which works by focusing marketing on few, recent titles. Google is about to flood the eBook market, thereby diluting attention, and cutting out distributors.
Publishers and retailers in Germany have mounted a massive lobbying effort, with a large score of Anti-Google articles in the press, and with a lot of direct massaging of politicians. What you can see now is the result of that effort.
We urgently need a digital publishing organization, which can promote new business models and adapt copyright and culture to the information age.
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:07 am
Today there also is an article on http://www.spiegel.de (in german) on the present wave of anti-Google sentiment by the german mainstram media: In english the headline would be: “They scold Google but target the Internet”
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/0,1518,637021,00.html
And: Sorry for the massive number of typos in the first post! I can only say that I was in a hurry but wanted to post anyway …
July 22nd, 2009 at 11:38 am
Google’s deal indeed breaks existing law. But it does so in a good way: It allows to re-publish out-of-print works without written consent of the rights-holders, which is good, because most rights-holders to out-of-print titles will be dead or asleep. Otherwise, this content will never make it into the digital age.
This has the drawback that rights-holders that do not want their out-of-print titles to see the light again have to explicitly state their intention. But IMHO this drawback is far outweighted by the cultural benefits.
The old law prevents access to cultural goods. The new law, should it be adopted and developed into an international legal code, would be an important step for relaxing some of the inanities of copyright law.
I am not necessarily a friend of Google, but in the long run this deal will not just benefit them. As soon as the legal model is generalized, everyone will be able to digitize and use out-of-print material. Using a central interface, rightsholders should be able to opt-out, or to apply for their share of the proceeds.