TweetAfter prolonged discussions of various positions (pro and con) on the Google book settlement, we have a decision. From his New York court, Judge Denny Chin has rejected the settlement, as going too far. The court concluded that the $125 million deal would allow Google (already a virtual monopoly) to "exploit" books without the permission of copyright owners. It concluded that the settlement might work if it were changed from an “opt out” to an “opt in” settlement. It denied the motion for approval without prejudice, meaning that it will reconsider the settlement if the parties can renegotiate a revised agreement.
Here are some early reactions and news stories:
• NYC judge rejects Google settlement with authors, publishers over firm’s huge digital library (Associated Press, as carried in Washington Post, 3-22-11)
• Judge Rejects Google Books Settlement (Amir Efrati, WSJ, 3-22-11)
• Scott Turow (Authors Guild) on Google Ruling. “Regardless of the outcome of our discussions with publishers and Google, opening up far greater access to out-of-print books through new technologies that create new markets is an idea whose time has come,” said Mr.Turow. “Readers want access to these unavailable works, and authors need every market they can get. There has to be a way to make this happen. It’s a top priority for the Authors Guild.”
• TeleRead summarizes the bases for Judge Chin's decision (Paul Biba, TeleRead 3-22-11)
And you can read the decision itself:
• Judge Denny Chin’s 48-page decision on the proposed settlement of the Google litigation, released March 22, 2011 (PDF)
There is more on background and the issues at Google Book Settlement (Pro and con) on Writers and Editors.
Added 3-23-11:
Am looking thoughtfully at an older article I didn't see before:
• Google's Book Search: A Disaster for Scholars (Geoffrey Nunberg, Chronicle of Higher Education, 3-31-09). Nunberg writes:
"...50 or 100 years from now control of the collection may pass from Google to somebody else—Elsevier, Unesco, Wal-Mart. But it's safe to assume that the digitized books that scholars will be working with then will be the very same ones that are sitting on Google's servers today, augmented by the millions of titles published in the interim.
"That realization lends a particular urgency to the concerns that people have voiced about the settlement —about pricing, access, and privacy, among other things. But for scholars, it raises another, equally basic question: What assurances do we have that Google will do this right?
"Doing it right depends on what exactly 'it' is. Google has been something of a shape-shifter in describing the project. The company likes to refer to Google's book search as a 'library,' but it generally talks about books as just another kind of information resource to be incorporated into Greater Google."
and later:
"to pose those [research] questions, you need reliable metadata about dates and categories, which is why it's so disappointing that the book search's metadata are a train wreck: a mishmash wrapped in a muddle wrapped in a mess."
Read the whole story here.
Here are some early reactions and news stories:
• NYC judge rejects Google settlement with authors, publishers over firm’s huge digital library (Associated Press, as carried in Washington Post, 3-22-11)
• Judge Rejects Google Books Settlement (Amir Efrati, WSJ, 3-22-11)
• Scott Turow (Authors Guild) on Google Ruling. “Regardless of the outcome of our discussions with publishers and Google, opening up far greater access to out-of-print books through new technologies that create new markets is an idea whose time has come,” said Mr.Turow. “Readers want access to these unavailable works, and authors need every market they can get. There has to be a way to make this happen. It’s a top priority for the Authors Guild.”
• TeleRead summarizes the bases for Judge Chin's decision (Paul Biba, TeleRead 3-22-11)
And you can read the decision itself:
• Judge Denny Chin’s 48-page decision on the proposed settlement of the Google litigation, released March 22, 2011 (PDF)
There is more on background and the issues at Google Book Settlement (Pro and con) on Writers and Editors.
Added 3-23-11:
Am looking thoughtfully at an older article I didn't see before:
• Google's Book Search: A Disaster for Scholars (Geoffrey Nunberg, Chronicle of Higher Education, 3-31-09). Nunberg writes:
"...50 or 100 years from now control of the collection may pass from Google to somebody else—Elsevier, Unesco, Wal-Mart. But it's safe to assume that the digitized books that scholars will be working with then will be the very same ones that are sitting on Google's servers today, augmented by the millions of titles published in the interim.
"That realization lends a particular urgency to the concerns that people have voiced about the settlement —about pricing, access, and privacy, among other things. But for scholars, it raises another, equally basic question: What assurances do we have that Google will do this right?
"Doing it right depends on what exactly 'it' is. Google has been something of a shape-shifter in describing the project. The company likes to refer to Google's book search as a 'library,' but it generally talks about books as just another kind of information resource to be incorporated into Greater Google."
and later:
"to pose those [research] questions, you need reliable metadata about dates and categories, which is why it's so disappointing that the book search's metadata are a train wreck: a mishmash wrapped in a muddle wrapped in a mess."
Read the whole story here.