The Google Book Settlement

...and what it means for learners and researchers in the UK

andy.powell@eduserv.org.ukhttp://twitter.com/andypowe11

29 September 2009based 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 copyright books 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 summary

there are other issues!• these slides are based on the

JISC summary (by Naomi Kornand Rachel Bruce) availableat:

http://writetoreply.org/googlebooks/

CC images by:v.max1978ailatan

Dawn EndicoToday is a good day

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Steve RhodesLin Pernille ♥ Photography

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(all on Flickr)