Google bids to extend Book Search settlement

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 28 Apr 2009 at 11:48

Google is lobbying the courts for a 60-day extension to the 5 May opt-out deadline accompanying its Book Search settlement.

The settlement is the culmination of a copyright infringement case filed by the Authors Guild and the American Association of Publishers in 2005. The two organisations claimed that Google's deal with universities to digitise books and show them online was a "plain and brazen violation of copyright law".

A $125 million agreement was reached in October calling for Google to fund a new book rights registry that would set download and print prices for digitised works, and track down authors and ensure they were compensated for their work.

The deal allows authors, publishers and other copyright holders to opt out of the settlement, but they must do so by 5 May. The problem has been in tracking down the copyright owners of "orphan works". These are books still covered by copyright but whose authors or estates cannot be contacted.

Google has launched a massive media campaign to track down these authors, but if they're not found in time they will be automatically included in the settlement.

"The settlement is highly detailed, and we want to make sure rights holders everywhere have enough time to think about it and make sure it's right for them," says Alexander Macgillivray, Google's associate general counsel in a blog posting.

The settlement has also fuelled the ire of a group of authors and copyright holders including Gail Steinbeck, the daughter-in-law of John Steinbeck. The group wrote a letter to the US District Court for Southern New York requesting the opt-out be delayed by an additional four months to give authors time to get their heads around the terms of the deal.

"The scope of the proposed is unprecedented," writes Andrew DeVore, of DeVore & DeMarco, a New York law firm representing the group. "For authors who do not opt-out, the settlement if approved would impose a complex scheme for the wholesale allocation of rights and remedies, and compensation for the exploitation of those rights, in the digital world."

The letter called the original two months deliberation period "woefully inadequate".