Libraries send DOJ letter on Book Settlement
By Paul Biba
This is from Bookseller.com:
Three American library associations have reiterated their support for the Google Book Settlement but stressed that it needs to balance pricing and access when selling institutional subscriptions.
The American Library Association (ALA), the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) have sent a letter to William Cavanaugh, deputy assistant attorney general of the US Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division.
In the letter, the associations said that implementation of the settlement, which allows US Google users to search and preview seven million scanned titles with an option to buy, needs to be monitored “closely”. It added that particular attention needed to be drawn to the pricing of institutional subscriptions for libraries and selection of the Books Rights Registry board members. The registry is the independent body that will distribute revenue from the Google Book Search programme to rights holders.
The organisations added: “With an absence of competition for the proposed services, the settlement could compromise fundamental library values such as equity of access to information, patron privacy and intellectual freedom, according to the library associations who filed comments with the presiding judge on behalf of libraries and the public interest.”
August 5th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
*** Since Bookseller’s web server software strips out paragraph breaks. I’ll post what I said there here with the proper breaks for easy reading. ***
I seems strange to state the obvious, but why are library associations supporting this settlement and merely quibbling about how much they’ll have to pay for institutional licenses? That seems quite selfish. There are much larger issues involved, issues that librarians ought to care about.
The settlement is for a dispute about U.S. copyright law, with the two plaintiffs representing an almost microscopic slice of those impacted. Authors Guild has a little over 8,000 authors, mostly Americans who are currently active as writers. The APA represents five large American publishers. Since the settlement impacts the treaty-granted U.S. copyrights of most of those who have published a book anywhere in the world since 1922, the plaintiffs are no more representative of copyright holders, than I’m the official spokesman of everyone in the world with dark hair.
Keep in mind that only a tad over 4% of those whose books were in Google’s initial scans at some six major libraries have used the Book Rights Registry to opt-in or opt-out of the settlement. That means that any library who signs an institutional agreement is agreeing to acquire a collection in which 96% of the books have been reproduced without the copyright holder’s knowledge or consent. That’s a fact I got straight from Michael Boni, one of the lawyers in this dispute.
Given that fact, why do these libraries need Google? Why not just acquire OCR scanners, copy everything in their stacks that’s not currently in print, and share the results among themselves. Then they can set their own price.
Why are they cowering behind Google? If what Google is doing is legal, they can do it themselves. If what Google is doing is illegal, then they should be condemning it and opposing the settlement, not fussing and fuming about how much they may have to pay.
And yes, I am one of the seven authors or their representatives who persuaded the court to extend the settlement deadlines by four months, so we can engage in this debate. I wear all the hats. I’m a busy author, editor and publisher. I even do book covers.
A few years ago, I fought and won a victory for fair use against perhaps the second wealthiest literary estate in the English-speaking world, that of J. R. R. Tolkien. I believe in a lively and generous interpretation of fair use. But I also believe in copyright. This settlement isn’t about fair use. It cheats authors and trashes international copyright agreements merely to enrich one giant corporation.
The three library associations listed above should be against this settlement and not just quibbling about a few details that happen to impact them directly.