Note for all authors - it is to your advantage to register your copyright
so as to be able to claim any royalties inder this scheme
June S
----------------------
Google settles dispute over online books
* Mark Sweney
* guardian.co.uk,
* Tuesday October 28 2008 15.13 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/28/googlethemedia-digitalmedia
Google has reached a landmark agreement with authors and publishers to
make millions of books available online, in a deal that includes a
$125m (£80m) payout and the end to lawsuits filed by companies
including Penguin.
The agreement, part of which is subject to the approval of the US
District Court in New York, comes after two years of negotiations
between the parties and will mark the end of two lawsuits against the
Google Book Search tool.
Today's agreement settles a class action lawsuit filed by the Authors
Guild in September 2005 challenging Google's plans to digitise, search
and show snippets of in-copyright books and to share digital copies
with libraries without explicit permission.
A month later five major members of the Association of American
Publishers – McGraw-Hill, Pearson Education, Penguin, Simon & Schuster
and John Wiley – filed a separate suit on similar grounds.
The deal today, described in a joint statement by all parties as
"groundbreaking", will see online access granted for millions of
in-copyright materials "and other written materials" in the US through
Google Book Search.
Rights holders will be able to control the pricing of online content
and access to books.
Under the agreement Google will make payments totalling $125m to be
used to establish a Books Rights Registry, to resolve existing claims
by authors and publishers and to cover legal fees.
Worldwide holders of US copyrights for written material can register
works with the Books Rights Registry and receive compensation from
subscriptions from institutions such as universities, book sales, ad
revenue "and other possible revenue models", as well as cash payment
for their works that have already been digitised.
Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, called the deal a "great leap" in
the search engine giant's endeavour to "organise the world's
information".
Free access will also be made available at participating US libraries
that are willing to pay a fee. There are more than 16,000 libraries in
the US.
Libraries at the California, Michigan, Wisconsin and Stanford
universities have "provided input" towards the settlement and will
make their collections available.
"It is hard work writing a book and even harder work getting paid for
it," said Roy Blount Jr, the president of the Authors Guild. "As an
author, well, we appreciate payment when people use our work. This
makes good sense."
· To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email
editor(a)mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other
inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.
· If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly
"for publication".
--
June Samaras
KALAMOS BOOKS
(For Books about Greece)
2020 Old Station Rd
Streetsville,Ontario
Canada L5M 2V1
Tel : 905-542-1877
E-mail : kalamosbooks(a)gmail.com
www.kalamosbooks.com