Copyright Advisory Network

Important news from District Dispatch:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 4, 2009

CONTACTS:
Jenni Terry, press officer, ALA Washington Office; (202) 628-8410; jterry@alawash.org
Prudence S. Adler, associate executive director, ARL; (202) 296-2296; prue@arl.org

WASHINGTON, DC – The American Library Association (ALA), the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) today filed comments with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York for the judge to consider in his ruling on the proposed Google Book Search Settlement.  The associations asked the judge to exercise vigorous oversight of the interpretation and implementation of the settlement to ensure the broadest possible benefit from the services the settlement enables.

Representing over 139,000 libraries and 350,000 librarians, the associations filed the brief as members of the plaintiff class because they are both authors and publishers of books.  The associations asserted that although the settlement has the potential to provide public access to millions of books, many of the features of the settlement, including the absence of competition for the new services, could compromise fundamental library values including equity of access to information, patron privacy and intellectual freedom.  The court can mitigate these possible negative effects by regulating the conduct of Google and the Book Rights Registry the settlement establishes.

“While this settlement agreement could provide unprecedented access to a digital library of millions of books, we are concerned that the cost of an institutional subscription may skyrocket, as academic journal subscriptions have over the past two decades,” Erika Linke, president of ACRL, said.

Under the settlement, Google, the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild resolved their legal dispute over the scanning of millions of books provided by research libraries.  The library associations are not asking the judge to reject the settlement.  Instead, they are requesting the judge to carefully monitor the parties’ behavior once the settlement takes effect.

Jim Rettig, president of ALA, said the proposed settlement, “offers no assurances that the privacy of what the public accessed will be protected, which is in stark contrast to the long-standing patron privacy rights libraries champion on behalf of the public.”

Although the filing deadline for comments to the judge was recently extended by four months, the associations moved forward with filing by the original deadline to help inform the public as it considers this important and complex matter.

“The filing before the court by the library associations demonstrates that the associations will be vigilant in highlighting the interests of the public in this settlement.  We have asked the court to exercise vigorous oversight to ensure that the powerful groups that control content do not leave individual researchers, libraries, other cultural organizations and the public without an effective voice,” Tom Leonard, president of ARL, said.

The library associations filing can be viewed on the ALA or ARL Web sites.

ALA, ACRL, ARL Google Book Settlement Brief on Scribd

Timothy Vollmer ALA acrl, ALA, arl, gbs, Google, google book settlement, library

Cross-posted on District Dispatch:

Members of library community discussed the implications of the Google Book Search settlement in a meeting hosted on February 9, 2009 in Washington, D.C. by the American Library Association Washington Office, the Association of Research Libraries and the Association of College & Research Libraries. Under the settlement, Google and the American Association of Publishers and Authors Guild resolve their legal dispute over the scanning of millions of books provided by research libraries. The settlement still requires approval of the presiding judge.

Although this is a private settlement, the result has very real implications for public policy and the way libraries of all types will operate.  The mission of libraries is to provide the broadest public access to the use of information, and the library community has a long history of advocating for laws and policies that protect the rights of library users. Because of the complexity of the agreement, its potential long-term impact on libraries, thus user interests, and the enormity of the book collection involved, many librarians have raised questions about the settlement’s impact.

Issues raised at the meeting that members believe are of key concern to libraries include:

-Access. What will the settlement mean for protecting the public’s ability to access and use digital resources from the nation’s libraries? Since the Book Rights Registry established as a condition of the settlement will represent the interests of the authors and publishers, who will represent the interests of libraries and the public? What are the financial implications of participation? Could the settlement create a monopoly that threatens the mission of libraries by raising the prices to an unreasonable level that limits public access?

-Privacy. What will reader privacy look like in a Google subscription-based world? Will the years of hard-fought effort to protect library users’ confidentiality be compromised as a for-profit company has new capabilities to monitor and track user reading habits under this settlement?

-Intellectual freedom. Are there academic freedom issues to consider? What are the implications of Google’s ability to remove works at its discretion? Will there be notification of their removal? What are the issues regarding possible access and use restrictions on the Research Corpus?

-Equitable treatment. Since not all libraries are addressed in the settlement, what impact will it have on the diverse landscape of libraries? In light of tight economic times, will this negatively affect libraries with lean budgets? Will it expand the digital divide?

-Terms of use. Under the terms of the agreement, will library users continue to enjoy the same rights to information under copyright and other laws? Will the settlement impact the legal discussions and interpretations of library exceptions that allow for library lending, limited copying and preservation?

Next, the executive boards and other leadership bodies of the library associations will consider a number of options available to them to have their voices heard in this debate. To stay posted on the latest developments of the associations’ next steps, see www.ala.org/washoff; www.arl.org; and www.ala.org/acrl.

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Timothy Vollmer ALA, Events acrl, ALA, arl, Google, googlebooksettlement, settlement

Reproduced here via OITP’s Google Books Settlement site.

ALA’s Committee on Legislation and Office for Information Technology Policy hosted a panel session Saturday at the ALA Midwinter Conference in Denver. The session was called “Google Book Settlement: What’s In It For Libraries,”   and aimed to educate librarians on the initial terms of the settlement, hear from leading a few leading library and legal experts, and offer time for audience members to pose questions to the panel participants.

As mentioned in an earlier post, panelists included Dan Clancy, Engineering Director for the Google Book Search Project, Paul Courant, Dean of Libraries at the University of Michigan, Karen Coyle, Digital Librarian and Consultant, and Laura Quilter, Librarian and Attorney at Law.

Dan kicked off the panel by giving a brief overview of the main points of the settlement. He stressed that the agreement is a compromise, and settles the class action lawsuit between Google, the Association of American Publishers, and the Authors Guild. The explained that the settlement class includes anyone with copyright interest in a book before published before January 5, 2009.

Dan said that the settlement does not affect books in the public domain, and does not include journals, magazines, newspapers, and images if the rightsholder of the image in a book is different than the rightsholder of the book itself. The settlement also applies only to rightsholders in the United States.

Mr. Clancy explained that the settlement allows Google to continue to scan, index, and otherwise use non-display versions of books. This corresponds with the default status today for in print books. Currently, Google’s scan index the contents of books, allowing users to search the full text of works, but only displaying up to 3 snippets of text per work (a snippet is considered a “non-display” use).

Read more…

Timothy Vollmer Events ALA, alamw09, col, denver, discussion, Google, googlebooksettlement, oitp, session, settlement

Cross-posted on District Dispatch:

If you’ll be at ALA’s Midwinter Conference in Denver at the end of January, please check out the session “Google Book Search: What’s In It for Libraries?” The open forum will be hosted by the ALA Committee on Legislation’s Copyright Subcommittee to discuss the proposed Google Book Search settlement. The discussion will take place on Saturday, January 24, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at the Grand Hyatt, Maroon Peak (listed as the Washington Office Breakout Session IV – Google Book Search in the program).

Panelists will include Dan Clancy, Engineering Director for the Google Book Search Project, Karen Coyle, Digital Librarian and Consultant, Paul Courant, Dean of Libraries at the University of Michigan, and Laura Quilter, Librarian and Attorney at Law. The session will be moderated by Nancy Kranich, chair of the COL Copyright Subcommittee. Following brief opening remarks by each panelist, there be an opportunity for dialogue and questions from the audience.

Check out some of ALA Washington’s other events at midwinter, including one session on International Copyright and Library Advocacy.

Additional information about the proposed Google Book Search settlement is available at http://wo.ala.org/gbs/.

Timothy Vollmer ALA ALA, conference, gbs, Google, googlebooksettlement, settlement

This morning Google, the Association of American Publishers, and the Authors Guild announced a settlement regarding Google’s controversial library book scanning project. Some analysis and opinion will be forthcoming on this blog, but in the meantime, here are some useful links to learn more about the project and about the settlement:

• Google Book Search settlement announcement
• Association of American Publishers press release
• Authors Guild announcement
• Joint University Press Release
• University of Michigan announcement
• Comments from Paul Courant, University of Michigan’s Dean of Libraries
• Google Book Search blog

MollyKleinman Academic libraries AAP, Authors Guild, Google, Stanford, University of Michigan