The Public Option

Economics columnist John Kay explored the future of a digital library in today’s Financial Times comment section.  His ultimate finding…a comprehensive digital library is too important to be entrusted to a closed legal settlement.

Kay writes:

The court case is an unsatisfactory way of deciding an important issue. The principal potential beneficiaries from the rapid extension of digital access – the public and authors struggling to get work published – are not parties to the case. The dispute, and the forum of resolution, is American, but the practical effects will be felt worldwide.

So how can we accomplish the feat without creating a Google monopoly?  Kay, like many others, proposes an open process where non-profit public sector organizations – not advertising companies – hold the keys and protect copyright holders’ valuable works.

What is needed is a public option. The great libraries of the past – from Oxford’s Bodleian Library to Andrew Carnegie’s small town facilities – have made incalculable contributions to scholarship and economic progress. These outcomes were the result of philanthropic and state action, which facilitated private enterprise. Comprehensive digitisation of printed media will cost a few hundred million dollars – large enough to constitute a commercial entry barrier, so the fear of Google is justified – but tiny relative to existing global library budgets, far less the potential economic benefits of wider reading and better scholarship. The debate should move to a larger, more international forum.

The Open Book Alliance couldn’t agree more.  International public opinion is clearly at odds with handing a single company the keys to a digital library.  As we move beyond the exclusive book settlement, we expect John Kay’s call for an independent, non-profit public library to be the ultimate resolution.

A Selective Apology: Waiting for More

by Peter Brantley

Google was universal in its policy to illegally scan copyrighted works and make them available via the company’s advertising-funded search engine. No matter the country, the author or the publisher, everyone was treated equally. Scan and search was the mantra for Google, no matter the copyright laws of individual countries worldwide, nor international treaties dictating copyright law between nations.

This blanket approach to the scanning of the world’s books makes Google’s recent apology to the writers’ in China all the more peculiar. On Saturday, Google issued a statement that said, “Through the discussions and communications of recent months, it is our understanding that our communications with Chinese writers have not been good enough. Google is willing to apologize to Chinese writers.” Google also promised that it would scan no more books without authorization from Chinese writers but made no new offers, while expressing a desire to resolve the dispute by March.

The consistency of purpose in the Google Books initiative leaves us waiting for a similar apology to other authors across the globe whether they are from the United States, Canada, France, etc. We’ll make sure to keep an eye out for future statements from Google.

Leading Author Groups Call on Congressional Authors to Oppose GBS 2.0

The National Writers Union, the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America today reached out to fellow authors in the U.S. Congress to highlight the flaws of the most recent Google Books Settlement proposal.   The letter to sent to more than 60 Congressional authors focused on the copyright, monopolistic and contractual ramifications of an approved GBS 2.0.

Today’s letter from prominent author groups further extends momentum against the proposed settlement between Google and the Author’s Guild and the Association of American Publishers.  In the last month, award-winning author Ursula K. Le Guin’s resigned from the Authors Guild because “[The Author's Guild] has decided to deal with the devil, as it were, and have presented your arguments for doing so. I wish I could accept them, but I can’t. ”

Google Opens Up on Real Benefit of GBS 2.0: Search

by Peter Brantley

Daniel Clancy, an engineer and director at Google Books, provided some of the most candid reasons for the company’s most recent settlement proposal with major authors and publishers in a story on the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.  Google hopes to benefit from it by improving our search. And we expect that we will make some money as we sell the books. ”

Although Google has continuously maintained that money is not their primary motivation, search is not a philanthropic pursuit of Google.  Search generated more than $10 billion in search revenue during the first half of 2009, according to the company’s 2009 second quarter earnings report.  Bolstering search content for Google is hardly a donation to the public.  It will significantly increase advertising revenues for a company that already owns more than 60% of the search business.

Clancy continues to cloud the issue and skirt the monopolistic aspects of Google business: “There’s nothing we’re doing that prevents anyone from doing the exact same thing.”

On the contrary, the settlement provides Google with the right to sell unclaimed orphan works with no checks and balances.  As Pam Samuelson, a law professor at the University of California-Berkeley said, “[Google] has basically turned this project into a bookstore, rather than a library.”

The Open Book Alliance fully agrees with Clancy when he said, “And the one thing that I strongly think is the wrong answer is that we should, you know, lock all this stuff up, so that nobody can discover them and nobody can use these books.”

Indeed, the best way to ensure that no books are locked up is to provide open competition in their use and distribution.  We should not rely on the benevolence of the largest for profit Internet company in the world.

Librarians’ Concerns Linger

On Tuesday, three national library associations sent a letter to the Department of Justice expressing their concern over Google’s pricing power should the GBS be approved.

In their opinion, entrusting a single entity with the exclusive rights to digitized books would, “make libraries particularly vulnerable to profit maximizing pricing.”

The group had previously expressed these concerns in a July 2009 letter, writing:

In the absence of competition for the services it will enable, the settlement could compromise fundamental library values such as equity of access to information, patron privacy, and intellectual freedom.

Tuesday’s letter reminds the DOJ that the revised settlement in no way solved this critical flaw.

Beyond the lack of competition codified by the GBS, the American Library Association, Association of Research Libraries and Association of Research Libraries continue to decry a lack of academic representatives on the proposed book registry.

Not surprisingly, they find it unacceptable that the folks who contribute “most of the books Google will scan and display” don’t get a say in overseeing this invaluable collection.

Google Book Settlement Lacks Poetic Justice

U.K. author Gillian Spraggs has taken the lead in sounding alarm bells for colleagues that may not be aware they’ll be ensnared in the GBS.  Earlier today, Spraggs released a paper titled, “The Google Book Settlement: a survival aid for UK authors.”

The author (a poet herself) has particular concern for the authors of shorter works:

I believe that short story writers, poets and essayists who have had work published in edited anthologies and multi-author collections should read the following summary with special attention. Under the settlement the treatment of such works (’inserts’, as they are called in the agreement) is different in crucial respects from the treatment of books. It is not, for instance, possible for the author to arrange for their removal from Google’s database. To the best of my knowledge, this information has not been well publicized within the UK.

Spraggs’ piece also illuminates the confusing terms that may be forced upon authors.  On the topic of opting-out, Spraggs writes:

It should be noted that when it first came under fire over its ‘Library Project’ (i.e. for digitizing books without permission), [Google] promised then that it would not digitize books if the rights-holders specifically requested they refrain. However, there have since been complaints that these requests have not always been honored [more information].

Of course, Professor Spraggs is not the only voice from across the Atlantic with significant questions about the proposed GBS.  The New York Times wrote today that President Nicolas Sarkozy has pledged over a billion dollars for a program to digitize and house books in the French National Library.

The move is a direct response to opposition in France about handing exclusive book rights to a single advertising company like Google.

Google and the M Word

Is Google a monopoly? Scott Cleland thinks so.  At a Monday presentation hosted by the Federalist Society, the tech consultant laid out his case for why Google is already acting in a monopolistic fashion.

The presentation – which can be found here in its entirety – covers four main points that brand a wide range of Google activities with the M word:

1. Google is a monopoly.
2. Google is a digital information distribution bottleneck.
3. Google’s antitrust defense is specious.
4. Google’s behavior is broadly predatory and anti-competitive.

Interestingly, Cleland includes the GBS in his “Top Ten List of Google’s Anti-competitive Behavior.” Specifically, he writes:

In the pending Book Settlement, Google seeks to exclude competitors from search access of the ill-gotten orphan works database, information the DOJ told the court that competitors need access to in order to compete.

Of course, Cleland isn’t the first to question if Google has become a monopoly. He is part of a growing chorus that is beginning to ask just how much power is too much.

French President Sarkozy Opposes GBS 2.0

International opposition to Google Books Settlement 2.0 continues to grow.  Most recently, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he’ll block Google from digitizing “France’s heritage.”  According to a BusinessWeek story, Sarkozy suggested that a share of a multi-billion Euro-economic investment plan could be used to digitize French books.

GBS 2.0 foes in France also include Editions du Seuil, a publisher that says Google Books violated national copyright laws.  Editions du Seuil challenged Google in a French court in September and awaits a judge’s decision on Dec. 18.  Google has scanned over 100,000 French works still protected by copyright, according to the Syndicat National de l’Edition, one of the two trade groups that have joined Editions du Seuil’s complaint

European Union Bolsters Opposition To Settlement 2.0

Negative international reaction to Google Books Settlement 2.0 continues to grow as European Union ministers recently agreed to move forward with plans to develop an alternative to Google Books.

French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterand said, “”It’s not up to this or that private group to decide policy on an issue as important as the digitization of our global heritage. I’m not going to leave this issue up to simple laissez-faire.”

European critics have protested Google’s plans because of anti-trust, privacy and copyright concerns.

Opposition to Settlement 2.0 will continue to mount over the next several weeks leading up to the January 28 deadline for public comment.

GBS 2.0 Misses the Mark By A Mile

As we have had 10 days to review GBS 2.0, the consensus from a broad community of stakeholders is clearly concern and disappointment at Google’s decision to make only minor modifications to the proposed settlement.

Earlier this month, the Open Book Alliance released baseline requirements that the new settlement proposal must meet in order to bring about the mass digitization of books in a way that embraces openness, competition and the public good.  These requirements reflected the collective expression of concerns by the U.S. Department of Justice, authors, publishers, academics, foreign nations, consumer advocacy groups, and many others, and thus we think it appropriate to review the revised settlement within this framework.

Unfortunately, the tweaked agreement failed to meet the minimum requirements.

See the table below to see how GBS 2.0 stacks up: