Google Settlement Probed by Columbia Law Center

For more details see www.authorlink.com

Google, authors and publishers recently entered into a settlement agreement in The Authors Guild et al. v. Google Inc., a class action lawsuit brought against Google in connection with its use of copyrighted books in its Book Search feature, and in The McGraw-Hill Companies et al. v. Google Inc., a separate lawsuit by publishers. The settlement, if approved by the court, purportedly will provide new opportunities for authors and publishers to market their works. It will also enhance the public’s ability to search for books and to get partial text displays (and, in the case of many older works, full text displays) at home, at school, and in libraries. At the same time, the settlement may have significant implications for copyright law, competition, research and scholarship.

The settlement creates a complicated and comprehensive plan for:

* copying copyrighted books in the collections of participating libraries, including them in Google’s database, and displaying all or part of them under certain circumstances
* deriving revenues from certain uses of the database and from sales of books
* paying authors and publishers
* creating a Book Rights Registry to facilitate the distribution of revenues to right holders
* opt out by right holders, as well as a mechanism by which participating right holders can limit use of their books
* free public access to Google’s “digital library” from public libraries and universities

The settlement embraces copyrighted works in U.S. libraries, regardless of whether the rightholders are U.S. or foreign nationals, unless the right holders opt out, which they must do by May 5, 2009.

The Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts presented a full-day conference on these topics. The potential long-term implications of the Google settlement for the parties, for other stakeholders whose works are not included in the settlement (e.g., photographers and illustrators), and for the public interest were examined.

Video Recording:

Part 1:

Introduction: June M. Besek, Executive Director, Kernochan Center, Columbia Law School

Legislating Through Settlement: Marybeth Peters, U.S. Register of Copyrights

Competition Issues: Prof. Randal C. Picker, University of Chicago Law School

http://media.law.columbia.edu/kernochan/kernochangoogle090313tape1t.html

Part 2:

Panel: The Future of "Books"

http://media.law.columbia.edu/kernochan/kernochangoogle090313tape2t.html

Moderator: June M. Besek, Executive Director, Kernochan Center, Columbia Law School

Panelists:

Allan R. Adler, Vice President - Legal and Governmental Affairs, Association of American Publishers (AAP)

Niko Pfund, Vice President and Publisher, Trade and Academic Books, Oxford University Press, New York

Richard Sarnoff, Co-Chairman, Bertelsmann, Inc. and President, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments

Jule Sigall, Senior Policy Counsel/Copyright and Trademark, Microsoft Corp.

Herman Spruijt, President, International Publishers Association

Lois F. Wasoff, Legal Consultant, former Vice President and Corporate Counsel, Houghton Mifflin Company

Part 3:

Panel: Authors and Incentives

http://media.law.columbia.edu/kernochan/kernochangoogle090313tape3t.html

Moderator: Prof. Jane C. Ginsburg, Columbia Law School

Panelists:

Tracey Armstrong, President and CEO, Copyright Clearance Center
Michael J. Boni, partner, Boni & Zack LLC, lead counsel for the Authors Guild and the Author Sub-Class in the Google Settlement
Jan Constantine, General Counsel & Assistant Director of the Authors Guild
Arthur Klebanoff, President of both Scott Meredith Literary Agency and RosettaBooks, an e-book publisher.
Eugene Linden, Author, Winds of Change, The Future and Plain Sight and other books.
Victor S. Perlman, General Counsel and Managing Director, American Society of Media Photographers, Inc. (ASMP)

Part 4:

Panel: The Public Interest

http://media.law.columbia.edu/kernochan/kernochangoogle090313tape4t.html

Moderator: Mary Rasenberger, Counsel, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
Panelists:
Jeffrey Cunard, Managing Partner, Washington, D.C. office, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP
Robert Darnton, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the Harvard University Library
James Grimmelmann, Professor, New York Law School
Alexander Macgillivray, Associate General Counsel for Products and Intellectual Property, Google Inc.
Carol A. Mandel, Dean, Division of Libraries, New York University