Google's controversial book deal looks to be meeting more and more resistance, with news that the U.S. Justice Department is making inquiries into concerns that it would give Google a monopoly over orphan works:
Peter Brantley of the Internet Archive, which also digitises books, said his organisation had "multiple conversations" with the Justice Department about the Google plan.
"There are legitimate antitrust issues related to Google's ability to solely commercialize this content," Brantley said, adding he hoped the settlement agreement would be rejected by U.S. District Judge Denny Chin.
"We would like the court to say: 'This is fine theoretically, but these orphan books, they don't have anyone to speak for them, so let's take them out of the agreement,'" he said.
In further news, the deadline for authors/publishers to opt-out of the deal has been extended by four months. The original deadline was May 5th.
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Royal Epistles Introduction
This idea is born from the author Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code",and his conclusion of the Holy Bloodline of Jesus Christ,and the holy grail being revealed as a young girl named Sophie. I'm going to attempt to write correspondence between Sophie and her best friend,and relative,who are separated and in hiding. I have decided to change Sophie's name for obvious reasons.
Documents and links in the Google Settlement
I'm one of the seven authors (or their representatives) whose letter led the court to extend the deadlines in the Goggle settlement by four months. That was particularly good news to writers in Europe, who're becoming increasing aware of what it may mean for them. It also gives more time for writers in this country to study the agreement. Even the otherwise well-written FAQ page set up by Google doesn't give a good picture of its full implications.
You can find a copy of our letter to the court requesting a four-month extension, along with other documents in the lawsuit at a webpage for downloads and links that I have set up.
http://inklingbooks.com/googlesettlement/googlesettlement.html
I particularly recommend reading:
* The Brewster Kahle interview on video. In it the founder of Internet Archive does an excellent job of explaining what the settlement means, particularly in relation to anti-trust issues. There's also a transcript beneath the video. It'd be great if this video could be dubbed into multiple languages.
* The Spiegel article on the growing opposition of German writers to the settlement.
* The Wall Street article by Lynn Chu.
* The American Historical Association critique of the value of Google Books for researchers.
* The Six-month extension request signed by 16 academic writers.
For the moment, I'm doing my best to link to developments in Europe until (hopefully) one or more websites or blogs in Europe take up the task. It'd be particularly good to have one that reports European news in English for the media in the U.S.
Anti-trust isn't the only issue in the Google settlement. A good case can be made that, because it drastically reduces the copyright privileges of foreign authors, it violates international copyright agreements the U.S. has signed.
--Michael W. Perry, Seattle