Google Books Settlement Still a Bit Unsettled
Information Today, Vol 26, No 6, p. 17, June 2009
3 Pages Posted: 11 Oct 2013
Date Written: June 1, 2009
Abstract
After nearly three years, a settlement was announced in October of 2008. In the settlement proposal, Google agreed to pay up to $60 to the copyright owner for each book that had already been scanned. Google would also be permitted to continue to digitize books and pay royalties unless the copyright owner opted out. In addition, Google agreed to fund a new “Book Rights Registry” which would collect revenues and pay out royalties for the ongoing use of digitized books. Google would pay the copyright holders 63% of all revenues – both from subscriptions to the books and Google advertising associated with the search pages – and retain 37% for its costs and profit. This proposed settlement, however, is not final until approved by the court.
Initial reaction to the settlement was generally positive. Both sides focused on the settlement as a means of making long lost and hard-to-obtain print resources broadly available to the general public. However, as details of the Registry and Google’s involvement it became more widely disseminated, concerns began to emerge.
Keywords: Google, Copyright, Settlement, monopoly, orphan works
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