The Google Book Settlement...and what it means for learners and researchers in the UKandy.powell@eduserv.org.ukhttp://twitter.com/andypowe1129 September 2009based on a summary by Naomi Korn and Rachel Bruce(for image credits see final slide)

Backgroundin 2004 Google started mass digitisation of books in the collections of several libraries and protected by US copyright lawseveral authors and publishers brought a lawsuit against them claiming infringement of copyrightGoogle claimed ‘fair use’ but have subsequently reached agreement with representatives of rights owners and publishers

The settlementcovers US published works – books, inserts in books, government works, public domain books...published on or before 5th January 2009the Book Rights Registry (BRR) will be established to distribute revenues, find rights holders, settle rights disputes and, where authorised, exploit third party rightsworks which are still in print will require copyright holders to opt in

Reviewthe settlement is currently under review by United States District Court, Southern District of New Yorka ‘status update’ will take place on the 7th October 2009 to “determine how to proceed with the case as expeditiously as possible”note: negotiations with US Department of Justice likely to lead to some revisions to settlement outlined here

Detailthe settlement allows Google to offer 4 primary servicespreviewsconsumer purchasesinstitutional subscriptionsfree public access service but note... this is a US settlement under US law and therefore only applies in the US

Previewsall US users will be able to search Google’s entire search database for digitised books free, and view up to 20% of text from out-of-print booksthere are special rules for special categories e.g. fiction vs. non-fiction

Consumer purchasesUS users may buy perpetual online access to the full text of out-of-print booksmay also buy access to in-print books, provided that the copyright owner has “opted in”

Institutional subscriptionsUS users within an institution may view the full text of all the books in the Institutional Subscription Database (ISD)this includes all books in the in-copyright but out-of-print category

Free public accessGoogle may provide a Free Public Access Service to not-for-profit higher education institutions and public libraries on specified conditionsnote: for public libraries, no more than one terminal per library buildingGoogle will also share its collection of out-of-print works with other books re-sellers who will be able to provide online access

Issues - territorialitythis is a US-only settlement (did I mention that already?)UK readers will not be able to access the full-text view of any texts, only the display and snippets viewsUK researchers will therefore be at a disadvantage to their US colleagues in not being able to view full text works nor the complete database of scanned books

Issues - controlthe Google digitisation programme may amount to over 30 million booksGoogle’s 5-year lead means that other projects will find it difficult to mount competitive digitisation programmesa large proportion of the world’s heritage of books in digital format and associated metadata will therefore be under the control of a single US corporate entity

Issues - preservationthere do not appear to be any provisions for long term preservation of the entire database of digitised books in the settlementand there are no stipulations for the legal deposit of this database in the instance that Google no longer wishes to preserve it

Issues - pricingeconomic terms for the Institutional Subscriptions Database will be based upon the realisation of revenue at market rates, and the realisation of broad access by the public (including higher education institutions)it is crucial that broad access is given full consideration in this settlement to ensure that the beneficial societal effects of the project are realised

Issues - censorshipGoogle may exclude 15 % of scanned out-of-print, in copyrightbooks from the databasethis may amount to the exclusion of 1 million bookspolitical pressure may be used to exclude particular booksnote: such exclusions must be published together with the reasons for their exclusion

Issues - privacysome of the services offered imply that Google will collect and retain information of users’ activitieshowever, the settlement does not specify how users’ privacy will be protected and in particular how that data may then be used

Issues - researchthe collection of scanned books represents a unique corpus for analysis and researchGoogle and two institutions may offer this for purposes of “non-consumptive research” (*) by “qualified users”the host site decides who is qualified and whether research is non-consumptive – no challenge available(*) “non-consumptive” means that the text is not accessed for display or reading

Issues - contractsthe settlement does not stipulate that its terms will not supersede legislated users’ rights, including specific and general exceptions for libraries and users, and any existing or new approaches to making orphan works accessible

And finally...this is only a brief summarythere are other issues!these slides are based on theJISC summary (by Naomi Kornand Rachel Bruce) availableat:http://writetoreply.org/googlebooks/CC images by:v.max1978ailatanDawn EndicoToday is a good dayanshu_sidocmansvenwerkCelesteSteve RhodesLin Pernille ♥ PhotographyPaul MayneB_ZedanEric M Martin(all on Flickr)