Google book settlement -- DENIED

[Ken Hirsch]

On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 4:57 PM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>wrote:

> Better do your searches on the origins of words or phrases or quotations
> before the Google Books database goes away.
>
> Here’s a link to Judge Chin’s opinion.   Bottom line is he finds the
> proposed Amended Settlement Agreement unfair.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
> http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/cases/show.php?db=special&id=115
>
>
Just to be clear, the question of whether Google is infringing copyright by
scanning, indexing, or displaying snippets hasn't been decided yet. All
that's been rejected is the proposed settlement. For now, Google can
continue to do what they're doing, although they may be risking paying out
more later if they are seen as continuing willful infringement.

It doesn't affect the legality of their displaying public domain works,
which will always be legal. They can also continue displaying "Preview"
books, since those are displayed with the permission of the copyright owner.
That permission could be withdrawn and it's possible that publishers might
use that as a little bit of bargaining power in regards to other works that
they own, but I think that mostly the preview is there because publishers
think it is in their interest.

The question of what is in the public domain is complicated:
  http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm

Works published before 1923 are in the public domain. After that, there are
many different cases and conditions. I find the term for works published
today to be bordering on the absurd: the life of the author + 70 years,
without any requirement for registration, renewal, or even a copyright
notice. If those were the terms all along, Google would be at risk for works
published even in the 1880s. Except for those works by a single known author
whose date of death is known, almost everything from then *might* still be
copyright if the law were then as it is now.

I think that the law should be changed to again require copyright renewal
every 28 years. If it's not worth doing that minimum (and for most books,
it's not), then it would be better that it pass into the public domain.

Ken Hirsch

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