Google, Copyright and No Word Count

[rolanni]

So, last night, instead of writing, I played around for a couple hours on the electronic copyright office and spent the money donated by kind, kind people (Thank You, Kind People) to register a buncha Lee and Miller titles. I still need to print out the bar-codes, and then we need to match them with the books, then bundle them up to be mailed, but -- that project is well underway.

For those who asked, yes, we did come up with two copies of all the relevant titles, though Pilots Choice has to go as trade paperback, that being the best available edition. Plan B was, just for a touch of irony, the only title Meisha Merlin had been registered with the copyright office.

I do see, from various lists and from notes attached to the previous entry that a Federal judge has extended the Google opt-in/opt-out deadline until September. Also, the Justice Department is asking questions in an anti-trust direction.

Discussions in various places around the net. Here's a couple links:

http://oncopyright.copyright.com/2009/04/28/opt-out-deadline-and-fairness-hearing-in-google-book-search-settlement-delayed/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/technology/internet/29google.html?_r=2&hp

http://government.zdnet.com/?p=4714


I've claimed books on Google, but haven't done anything else. I'll be listening to the continuing discussion very closely.

Comments

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Well, that's the problem. I can't make much sense out of it, and neither can most of the writers we know. The settlement document is huge, cumbersome and it's not to Google's best interest to have it be readily understandable by Regular People -- i.e. not Google's lawyers.

It's also vitally important to how writers are going to make a living (or at least, money) from their work to figure this out. Google was rushing things so they could, yanno, have it their way, and now people are asking questions, and judges are listening, so that's good.

I tend to think that having One Big Pile of Every Book Ever Printed under the control of One Big Company, overtly on the side of Evil or not, is a Bad Idea.

Also? I find the notion that All Books Everywhere ought to be automatically available to everyone, always and forever...fantastical. Sometimes, for career reasons, an author may want to let a book go out of print and be unavailable for a while. That really ought to rest with the writer, since it's their career to manage.

And, on the gripping hand: One Big Pile of Books under the control of One Big Company? So ripe for censorship abuse. See the last Amazon.com kerfuffle.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Uh, yeah.

Funny how even the court seems vague on the concept that a copyright is effing *property*.