The settlement


Earlier this week:

(From Publisher's Weekly, an industry trade magazine)

In testimony before the House Judiciary subcommittee this morning, Marybeth Peters, U.S. Register of Copyrights, in her first detailed comments on the subject, blasted the Google Book Search Settlement as “fundamentally at odds with the law.” In a blistering assessment of the deal, Peters told lawmakers that the settlement is in essence a compulsory license that would give Google the ability to engage in activities, such as text display and sale of downloads, that are “indisputable acts of copyright infringement.”

Most damaging, however, was Peters’s insistence that only Congress—not the courts—could enact such licenses, and her repeated assessments that the settlement deprived Congress of its role. “By permitting Google to engage in a wide array of new uses of most books in existence the settlement would alter the landscape of copyright law,” Peters said. “That is the role of Congress, not the courts.” She said that by allowing out-of-print works to be swept into the settlement, the deal “makes a mockery of Article I of the Constitution.” Only Congress, she stressed, after a full public debate, can set such new rules.

Excellent points - so why weren't they made, say, months ago, rather than almost a week after authors had to decide whether to opt into the agreement or not?

Google's digitization was a clear violation of copyright law - piracy, pure and simple. And the agreement negotiated by the Authors' Guild is a piss poor solution.

Unfortunately, unless you're in a position to sue Google, the only practical way for an author to even attempt to get Google to stop abusing your copyright is to opt in, and then tell them they have to obey the law. Which is kind of like having to get murdered to get someone to enforce traffic laws.

And you can't even object to the settlement, unless you're part of it.

For the record, I opted in, after long debate. But I still think it stinks.