Need some research help

[rolanni]

OK, the US Government has decided to be upset about the Google Book Settlement. The Justice Department has sent out formal requests for information to various entities, including the Authors Guild, Google, and divers publishers.

But none to authors.

Can someone figure out how authors can get in on the fun, here? I love my publisher, but their interests do not necessarily coincide with mine in this matter; we have different necessities.

Article here

Abundant Spanish Aunts.

Comments

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Now, that's research. Thank you, sir.

SFWA's advice, if any...is not something I'd be likely to find any value in. That is, naturally, Just Me. And! SFWA cannot negotiate for its members.

Both Google and the Authors Guild seem to have forgotten that copyright is property and, barring cases of work-for-hire, copyright belongs to the creator. Publishers lease the use of a work for X number of years, but when that time is done, the rights revert, as we say, to the copyright holder, who may then decide to hold the work aloof (in order to build up demand, say); to sell it again; to give it away for free on the web; or to print it up as a pamphlet and distribute it with the Sunday paper.

The copyright holder gets to determine the use of hisorher rights. Not Google. Not the publisher. Not the Authors Guild.

It is this point that I wish that the court will not forget when making its determination.

Heard back from DOJ and Authors Guild.

[johnhawkinson.livejournal.com]

DOJ

The section of the DOJ handling the Google Books settlement investigation is Litigation III ("Lit.3"). I heard back today from a staff attorney there, who explains that their civil investigative demands are not public, and they are particularly focused on the questions of consumer harm and anti-trust. He further explains that questions regarding the composition of the class (for class action) and what he terms "Rule 23" questions, referring to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/Rule23.htm) (HTML copy at Cornell; official PDF here (http://www.uscourts.gov/rules/CV2008.pdf)) that govern class actions—those are all best directed to the Court.

If there are particular issues of consumer harm to bring to the Antitrust Division of the DOJ, they can be filed with the DOJ ATR's Citizen Complaint Center (http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/contact/newcase.htm):

E-mail antitrust.complaints@usdoj.gov
Mail Citizen Complaint Center
Antitrust Division
950 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Room 3322
Washington, DC 20530
Phone 1-888-647-3258 (toll free in the U.S. and Canada) or 202-307-2040

Author Guild

I also corresponded with the Authors Guild's counsel, Joanne Zack (of Boni & Zack) confirmed that the Authors Guild did indeed receive a civil investigative demand, but she said that neither the demand nor information as to who at the DOJ issued it were public.

I think that's about it for what I can do on this topic...