Google, Authors Guild Reach Settlement - Settlement Terms
(Page 2 of 4 )
Google offers an excellent FAQ that covers the terms of the settlement. The Authors Guild also offers its own page with resources covering all stages of the lawsuit, starting with the documents originally filed and continuing through the 323-page settlement agreement itself. Such lengthy legal agreements are not unusual, but it's tempting to observe that the document is long enough to be a novel in its own right. At the time of this writing, the settlement is awaiting approval by the courts, but no one seems to expect it to be rejected.
Under the terms of the agreement, Google will pay the authors and publishers $125 million. The search engine notes that “Cash payments will be made for books scanned prior to the deadline for opting out of the settlement. In addition, rightsholders will be paid a share of revenues for future uses of their books.” The Authors Guild's web site includes detailed advice for authors, and additional information is also available. Anyone with a US copyright interest in one or more books is included in the settlement, so if you're an author you'll want to check it out.
Before I tell you how much each author will get, let me tell you what Google gets out of the deal. If the settlement is approved, the search engine gets the right to do the following things:
- Scan books and inserts that are still covered under copyright law.
- Develop an electronic books database.
- Sell subscriptions to the books database to schools, corporations, and other institutions.
- Sell individual books to consumers.
- Place advertisements next to pages of books.
And what do the copyright holders get? Not a bad deal, actually: 63 percent of all revenues Google earns from these uses. In order to pay the right entities, a Book Rights Repository will be set up. If you're really curious about the details, the settlement agreement I linked to above even goes to the level of what constitutes a sale and how much Google can charge for books.
Oh by the way, don't get too panicky about the advertisement provision. You may see advertising next to book pages online, but Google insists in its FAQ that “Advertising will not be overlaid on pages from a book.”
I expect many authors reading all this are wondering about the Book Rights Registry. Is Google going to administer this and decide who gets how much? Not hardly; this is one case in which Google is truly trying to live up to its “Don't be evil” motto.
The Book Rights Registry will be a newly created, independent, not-for-profit entity “established for the purposes of locating rightsholders, collecting and maintaining accurate rightsholder information, providing a way for rightsholders to request inclusion in or exclusion from the project, distributing payments earned from online access provided by Google, and representing rightsholders’ interests in connection with similar programs that may be established by other providers,” according to Google's FAQ. The search engine will not be managing the Book Rights Registry at all; instead, it “will be managed by a board of directors consisting of an equal number of author representatives and publisher representatives.”
Next: What Searchers Will See >>
More Search Engine News Articles
More By Terri Wells
