Google Book Settlement?
Katz: You can not settle a claim for copyright infringement by authorizing the miscreant to continue; http://j.mp/a4KJOz
Katz: You can not settle a claim for copyright infringement by authorizing the miscreant to continue; http://j.mp/a4KJOz
The new terms of the digital book deal pave the way for other companies to licence from Google; http://j.mp/1a1tnz
Google plans to launch an online store to deliver eBooks to any Web browser: Google Editions; http://j.mp/3uzQJu
Yahoo/Reuters: “The Web search giant said on Thursday it would launch Google Editions in the first half of next year, initially offering about half a million e-books in partnership with publishers with whom it already cooperates, where they have digital rights. – Readers will be able to buy e-books either from Google directly or from other online stores such as Amazon.com or Barnesandnoble.com. Google will host the e-books and make them searchable.”
TC: “No wonder Jeff Bezos is trying to block Google’s book settlement. Google wants to loosen his grip on the digital book industry through his Amazon-only Kindle. … If Google can turn any browser into a digital book reader and it can offer as good a catalog as Amazon can on the Kindle, then that is one less reason to buy a Kindle.”
SEL: “Google will share e-book revenue with publishers and, if the e-book is bought somewhere other than Google’s store, with the retailer that sells it. When Google sells the e-book directly, publishers will get 63% of revenue and Google will keep the rest. When a third-party retailer sells the e-book, the publisher will get 45%, and the retailer will get ‘most of the remaining 55%,’ Google said.”
Mashable: “To the consumer, Google’s entry into the electronic books market is most certainly a good thing. It means more customer choice, more widespread support for eBook open standards, and better access to the books they buy online. You’ll be able to use your Gmail login to access your Google eBook ‘library’ from almost any device, whether it be desktop, laptop, netbook, phone, or anything else able to access the web.”
Google bug fixes Google Groups: Still, Google is an ad company, not a modern Library of Alexandria; http://j.mp/1N7N8t
Authors, academics, librarians are fighting against Google creating a digital library and bookstore; http://j.mp/1Y4jnV
U.S. DOJ urges changes for the Google Books Deal: authors should not be approved by the court; http://j.mp/2crjIZ
Google is making one million public domain books available free on the Cooler ebook reader; http://bit.ly/lukAH
Google Books offers more than 1 million out of copyright and public domain books in ePub now; http://bit.ly/vIhiF
The ambitious book digitization project of Google arouses support and resistance in Europe; http://bit.ly/ZUIJA
While the Internet has transformed much of media, books have been a laggard: Google may change that; http://tr.im/uIoV
SEL: “As expected, a revised Google Book Settlement has been filed today – about as late as possible. The agreement narrows the scope to the US, UK, Canada and Australia. It alters how revenue generated by ‘unclaimed works’ will be handled. It formally grants retailers who license out-of-print books covered by the settlement – including Google competitors – a 37% share of sales. It also clarifies how the book pricing algorithm will work.”
NYT: “The changes also restrict the Google catalog to books published in the United States, Britain, Australia or Canada. That move is intended to resolve objections from the French and German governments, which complained that the settlement did not abide by copyright law in those countries. – The revised settlement could make it easier for other companies to compete with Google in offering their own digitized versions of older library books because it drops a provision that was widely interpreted as ensuring that no other company could get a better deal with authors and publishers than the one Google had struck.”
Google: “The changes we’ve made in our amended agreement address many of the concerns we’ve heard (particularly in limiting its international scope), while at the same time preserving the core benefits of the original agreement: opening access to millions of books while providing rightsholders with ways to sell and control their work online. … We’re disappointed that we won’t be able to provide access to as many books from as many countries through the settlement as a result of our modifications, but we look forward to continuing to work with rightsholders from around the world to fulfill our longstanding mission of increasing access to all the world’s books.”
Brantley, Open Book Alliance: “Our initial review of the new proposal tells us that Google and its partners are performing a sleight of hand; fundamentally, this settlement remains a set-piece designed to serve the private commercial interests of Google and its partners. None of the proposed changes appear to address the fundamental flaws illuminated by the Department of Justice and other critics that impact public interest. By performing surgical nip and tuck, Google, the AAP, and the AG are attempting to distract people from their continued efforts to establish a monopoly over digital content access and distribution; usurp Congress’s role in setting copyright policy; lock writers into their unsought registry, stripping them of their individual contract rights; put library budgets and patron privacy at risk; and establish a dangerous precedent by abusing the class action process.”