Last October, Google signed a $125 million settlement with the Author’s Guild to pay authors for copyrighted works it has scanned and made available on the Web through its Google Book Search project. More than 7 million books have been scanned by Google so far, a large portion of them out of print. Today, the Google Book Settlement site went up, which allows authors and other copyright holders of out-of-print books the ability to submit claims to participate in the settlement.
What do they get? Authors, publishers, and other copyright holders will get a one-time payment of $60 per scanned book (or $5 to $15 for partial works). In return, Google will be able to index the books and display snippets in search results, as well as up to 20% of each book in preview mode. Google will also be able to show ads on these pages and make available for sale digital versions of each book. Authors and copyright holders will receive 63 percent of all advertising and e-commerce revenues associated with their works. With Google Book Search now available on mobile phones, downloaded e-books could become an interesting digital side-business for Google. (But please Google, convert the scanned text into something more easily legible on the screen).
Remember, this settlement is only for the millions of out-of-print books that are making zero revenues for authors and publishers today. So it is not a bad deal all around. Copyright holders have until January 5, 2010 to make a claim.
interesting. hopefully the authors get in the long tail of book search advertising.
This seems like a fair solution to all parties.
Anjali sen
My blog being indexed by Google is also a copyright infringement if you ask me… where can I sign up for my $60?
@Melvin
You can stop Google from indexing your blog by entry in robots.txt or noindex, nofollow attribute?
Shouldda added the [/sarcasm] tag…
Erick (and Prof. Lessig) are too kind. $60 of compensation is essentially the same as $0, let’s be honest. So Google gets the right to copy content first super cheap and profit from it. Yes, there is a 63% revenue sharing clause, but somehow I suspect it won’t work out well. I’d like to see how many authors actually bother to register and claim the $60+%. Does Google keep the rest?
It’s also the foot in the door for treating recent books the same. Hey, if it’s good enough for “Gone with the wind”, surely it’s good enough for “W”.
This may become known as the pearl harbor of the book industry.
Please, is advertising for the books.
Many times i search for information, get a book referenced, and then buy it.
This is for OUT-OF-PRINT books.
YOU CAN’T BUY THEM, idiot!
Of course you can buy out of print books: used. I use abebooks, Amazon, and others for out of print books.
The copyright holder retains the copyright regardless of whether the book is in print or not. In fact, they alone have discretion over whether the book is in print. They can self-publish, if they so choose, or let the book disappear from the market, if they so choose. That’s the point of copyright. Idiot.
This lawsuit hardly just effects out of print books.
As the copyright holder of a novel I was contacted by the law firm handling this.
http://www.goog...settlement.com/
Since my in print novel was partially reprinted on Google Books, as far as I can tell, I get a $5 or a $15 option. Hardly worth filling the paperwork out for. For me, a new author, this isn’t much.
For more established authors there might be some money in this. But you have to opt-out of the lawsuit, i.e. giving Google permission.
I am not sure if authors benefit from this one. I know the lawyers handling this will eat steak dinners from their cut as they always do. Google? They’ll be just fine I suspect.
With only one title effected and at best a Jackson note coming my way if I opt out I am not sure to sign or not sign.
Google business model is based on piracy. What will come next? Let me see:
Google Games: Games can be played/downloaded with missing levels and with addition of tons of ads.
Google Movies: Movies/series can be watched/downloaded with missing scenes and with addition of tons of ads.
Google Software: Software can be used/downloaded with missing functions and with addition of tons of ads.
Reproduction without permission is piracy.
Bye,
Alex Nautilus
“Today, the Google Book Settlement site went up”
Actually the site was up since at least 13 days ago, see http://blogosco...rum/149509.html
Stop the presses!
The main issue with this settlement is that it gives Google a monopoly in this arena. I’d be much more comfortable is there were several parties involved in providing and competing for this service. Amazon is an obvious candidate.
This feels a bit like the networksolutions monopoly on the .com domains. No competition results in no incentive to reduce the price.
If Google bought one of the major textbook publishers (i.e. Cengage Learning) they’d save students billions of $$$ each year in the US alone. Open the flood gates…keep it coming Google!
However, I agree with the last commenter. There needs to be more players in this space. Amazon would be an obvious competitor and should be welcome. The problem is Amazon doesn’t really have the advertising prowess as Google. Apples App store seems to have an alternative model which appears to be working; cheap or free and always easy.
“The problem is Amazon doesn’t really have the advertising prowess as Google.”
Excuse me? Amazon IS actually one of the largest advertisers on Google Books. If it was a Amazon service they could add a Instant Button next to each result.
Instant Buy button*
One Click Buy button, whatever :d… talking about button… where’s the edit button on TechCrunch…?
The problem is they are selling books (well…mostly) as advertisement. Another problem that could arise is that fact that they’d be competing with themselves. They might hurt their bottom line if digital copies become more widespread. We all know that there’s going to be a huge surge in e-readers in the near future and this could become very disruptive for any traditional book retailer; including Amazon. The advent of the Amazon Kindle is probably how they plan to compete in this space. Amazon appears to be using their hardware as a business model for digital books. This release was obviously a defensive move.
Great move. Crappy product. I can’t wait to see how it evolves.
Oh…and you’re right about Amazon’s instant purchases. Their “one-click” patent will make purchases streamline. It’s a non-issue.
Seems like it’s going to be really hard to verify that someone is the author or, even worse, heir to an author…
theres lots of books scanned in that are not out of print. the ads next to them say buy from amazon and borders.
google is the new microsoft. evil tyrant until somebody else unseats them. its the natural cycle of things.
The authors are getting screwed.
how the hell are they getting screwed? For indexing samples of out of print books, and getting paid 63% of the ad profit w/o anyone even getting to read the book – oh yea, they are getting screwed by folks using keywords to find their out of print books and walking down to the library and reading them for free, yeah, I forgot about the libray who put book authors out of business like the VCR put the movie / tv industry out of business.
But please Google, convert the scanned text into something more easily legible on the screen). –>agreed. I couldn’t read a page with iphone.
authors aren’t getting screwed. no one’s going to be able to read the whole book online. it’s great publicity for authors, and actually helps people too. they find relevant books they otherwise wouldn’t discover. i don’t even think google should pay. it’s like saying you can’t read a book at a bookshop before buying. no permission granted by authors there either
Exactly!!!!!!
All these internet businesses are based on piracy, which they then roll over the IP owners once they get big.
Youtube got its start ripping off music videos, simpsons episodes etc
Google rips off and profits from everyone’s content – just look at Google News, Book search etc..
Facebook/Myspace take your personal information and profit from it
etc
Authors are getting screwed at $60 a book. Who says I want the book to be distributed at all??
Each author also receives a tshirt:
“My book got scanned and all I got was this t-shirt (and $60).”
Nice to see a settlement reached, and the authors get a couple bucks.
Love this google service.
I might be missing something.. but most of the books that i’ve checked out at Google books are missing the publishing date and copyright pages. Coincidence? I think not. Some of the dead media versions that I have at home have specific messages on these pages about not copying them to digital databases, libraries, etc. sorta like the FBI warning at the start of movies.
As both an author of textbooks, popular books and a publisher, this deal is much like the old “:% of net profits” deal movie stars were fed by their agents. Once you sign over “digital rights” for a paltry sum of $60, you have lost complete control for a lifetime of your creative work and all deriviatives from it..as the digital version is NEVER considered out of print.
Does that mean I can take 20% of any book I want and put it online, and then only pay the author $60? What if 5 people get together and they each do 20%, is it then $300 to reproduce an entire book?
$60 per book? Pretty ridiculous.
From the opinion of a user (and broke college student) I think google books is (almost) great. If I’m going to be looking at ads while I’m reading my book then why can’t I see the complete text? Some of you people act like you’ve never been to a library, or are those ripping off the authors too? The only cost of the library is that you have to travel there. Otherwise, I see no difference between the two. If I want to read a book at the library I’ll go there, borrow it, and bring it back. If I want to read it online, I’ll pull up the page, read it, and close the page. The only difference I can see here is that most people are too lazy to be bothered going to the library. If everyone went to the library rather than buying books I wonder how long until library’s were sued.
As it stands now though, I can understand the anger at Google. As I said, if I’m to look at ads I want the whole text. If google advertised only enough to cover the costs of hosting and were drawing no profit from the works they host then I would have zero objections. However, as it stands, it would seem that they are offering half a product, drawing revenue from ads that we users take in, and not giving much in return to the authors.
As a professional author, I am strongly opposed to the Google Settlement. Google did NOT just scan works that are out of print, or whose authors are dead. They scanned in-print works whose authors and publishers are actively making money from them, and then offered a pathetic $60 MAXIUMUM per book as compensation for copyright violation–the actual amount will depend on the number of claimnants. Then Google is offering a digital distribution deal where the authors and publishers have no control over the distribution of the e-works and the compensation for which is entirely unspecified. Also, Google is not releasing a list of the books they scanned. If you are an author, they will only tell you if your works were scanned if you do not opt out of the Settlement (that is, you allow Google to distribute your books) and make a claim. If you do not accept Google’s deal (legally opt out of the Settlement, which you have to do before May 5)–AFTER Google went ahead and scanned your books–the Settlement contains no promises that Google will not sell your books anyway, without compensating you at all. It’s totally outrageous.
Also, the Settlement does not take into account the variety of copyright holders for many books–separate copyrights for illustrators, people who wrote appendices and forwards, etc. It’s a total rights nightmare. But what does Google care? They illegally grabbed the material, they’ll go ahead and sell it, and depend on their own deep pockets to quash any further lawsuits.
Oh yes, Google is ALSO making everyone who does not opt out of the Settlement help to pay to maintain the Registry/database they are setting up. As the amount to be paid is totally uncertain, and the revenues from e-sales are totally uncertain, there is a real fear that copyright holders will end up paying the Registry more than Google pays them.
If they think its tough making a living now, writers are in for the worst. It’s free online, you don’t even have to get off the couch and go to the library? Enjoy that sixty bucks — if you write one book every four years you’re making 15 mucks a year royalties and losing thousands of sales. By the way, the Google guys are rich. Enjoy.
If they think its tough making a living now, writers are in for the worst. It’s free online, you don’t even have to get off the couch and go to the library? Enjoy that sixty bucks — if you write one book every four years you’re making 15 mucks a year royalties and losing thousands of sales. By the way, the Google guys are rich. Enjoy.
Very informative post !
“Some of you people act like you’ve never been to a library, or are those ripping off the authors too? snip … If everyone went to the library rather than buying books I wonder how long until library’s were sued.”
You know nothing about books, libraries, rights and sales. Libraries BUY books, which means that the writers and illustrators (of which I am one) get royalties. Library books are in library hardcover bindings which means they are the most expensive (unlike mass paperbacks) and we get the MOST royalties. On top of it, here in Canada, we get Public Lending Rights… I get about $3000 PER YEAR for my books being in libraries for you to read. Let’s compare that for $60 for EVER.
Google does not limit itself to out of print books, but to ALL books and printed materials distributed in the US, whether the creators are in the US or not. It doesn’t just limit to a small percentage of the book, but reserves the right in the future to sell to libraries the rights to the whole book, and to print on demand of books. And I HAVE out of print books, which I can put online MYSELF and get 100% of the fee, and 100% of control, or resell the book (for thousands) to another publisher… many out of print books have been reprinted.
I have contracts signed for all books I illustrate, and those contracts state that my PUBLISHER has the online and other digital rights, and this Google thing basically wipes every one of those nearly 100 contracts out, and replaces their own blanket contract covering every book created in the US in the past. How is this ok? I LIVE off my work. BTW, as an illustrator, my work (even if my publishing contract says I did %50 of the book, and get 50% of the royalties) is considered by google settlement to be an “insert”, and thus I will get MAX $15 per book… basically the price of a week or two internet, for everyone in the world to go to google and use my work that took me 3-6 months. Nice.
And btw, this $15? It isn’t even for USING my work, it is for STEALING it. What kind of disincentive is that?