The Google Book Settlement - and what it means for learners and researchers in the UK

The Google Book Settlement
...and what it means for learners and researchers in the UK
andy.powell@eduserv.org.uk
http://twitter.com/andypowe11
29 September 2009
based on a summary by Naomi Korn and Rachel Bruce
(for image credits see final slide)

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

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

Review
the settlement is currently under review by United States District Court, Southern District of New York
a ‘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

Detail
the settlement allows Google to offer 4 primary services
previews
consumer purchases
institutional subscriptions
free public access service
but note... this is a US settlement under US law and therefore only applies in the US

Previews
all 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 books
there are special rules for special categories e.g. fiction vs. non-fiction

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

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

Issues - territoriality
this 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 views
UK 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 - control
the Google digitisation programme may amount to over 30 million books
Google’s 5-year lead means that other projects will find it difficult to mount competitive digitisation programmes
a 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 - preservation
there do not appear to be any provisions for long term preservation of the entire database of digitised books in the settlement
and there are no stipulations for the legal deposit of this database in the instance that Google no longer wishes to preserve it

Issues - pricing
economic 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 - censorship
Google may exclude 15 % of scanned out-of-print, in copyrightbooks from the database
this may amount to the exclusion of 1 million books
political pressure may be used to exclude particular books
note: such exclusions must be published together with the reasons for their exclusion

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

Issues - research
the collection of scanned books represents a unique corpus for analysis and research
Google 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 - contracts
the 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.max1978
ailatan
Dawn Endico
Today is a good day
anshu_si
docman
svenwerk
Celeste
Steve Rhodes
Lin Pernille ♥ Photography
Paul Mayne
B_Zedan
Eric M Martin
(all on Flickr)

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The Google Book Settlement - and what it means for learners and researchers in the UK

by Andy Powell on Sep 29, 2009

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The Google Book Settlement - and what it means for learners and researchers in the UK — Presentation Transcript