Mountain View, California-based Internet search giant Google turned another page in its ambitious book  scanning program Tuesday when it announced a $125 million legal settlement with authors and major publishers that included the formation of a unique book rights holder registry in the United States and money to compensate some authors whose works have been scanned without their consent. The class action settlement, which requires the approval of a U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York judge, would create new revenue sharing opportunities for authors and copyright holders and significantly expand the amount of preview book text available to U.S. users of the popular Google Book Search program. Google Co-founder Brin Says Settlement Is "Giant Leap" Google Book Search was launched in 2004 as one of the major ambitions stemming from the fundamental goals of company co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who envisioned making it easier for people to search for information contained within the world's books through a Web-based interface. Brin, who is also the president of technology at Google, said the Tuesday agreement was a large step forward. "Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," Brin said in announcing the settlement. "Today, together with the authors, publishers, and libraries, we have been able to make a great leap in this endeavor," Brin said. The agreement announced Tuesday by Google, the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild "on behalf of a broad class of authors and publishers worldwide," ended two years of negotiations surrounding a pair of legal suits brought against Google in 2005. The first was a class-action suit brought by the Authors Guild and book authors, followed soon after by a separate lawsuit filed by publishers McGraw-Hill, Pearson Education, Penguin Group, Simon & Schuster and John Wiley & Sons each as representatives of AAP. The legal suits arose from opposition to Google's efforts to scan and display snippets of in-copyright books without the explicit permission of the copyright owner, the parties said. Short Snippets Would Be Replaced By 20 Percent Of Book Preview With Option To Buy From Google Google said the "groundbreaking" agreement would, if approved, benefit readers and researchers with expanded "online access to millions of in-copyright books and other written materials," although the new access stemming from the settlement would not affect those outside the U.S. Many of the 7 million or so books that Google has scanned to date through agreements with libraries and other  archives are out of print yet still covered under U.S. copyright laws. When Google cannot find the copyright holder and get permission to display such books online in their entirety, Google Book Search instead shows a short three or four line snippet taken from one page of the book. Under the agreement announced Tuesday that short snippet would be replaced with up to 20 percent of the book in such cases, allowing researchers a more thorough preview and a way to purchase access to the entire scanned book online. "Holders worldwide of U.S. copyrights can register their works with the Book Rights Registry and receive compensation from institutional subscriptions, book sales, ad revenues and other possible revenue models, as well as a cash payment if their works have already been digitized," Google said Tuesday. Under the settlement, $34.5 million was to be used for the establishment of the Book Rights Registry according to court files, a program that would seek out copyright holders and represent them, according to Google chief legal officer David Drummond. The Google-run registry would also "be responsible for distributing the money Google collects to authors and publishers," which Drummond said would create "a strong incentive for rightsholders to come forward and claim their works." Google Book Search At Core Of Google's Search Engine Efforts "Today, Google only shows snippets of text from the books where we don't have copyright holder permission. This agreement enables people to preview up to 20 percent of the book," Drummond said. Drummond, who is also Google's senior vice president of corporate development, said in a Tuesday message posted on the company's blog that the new content which would become available through the Google Book Search settlement was at the core of the Internet giant's search engine vision. "Search simply isn't complete without that content, and providing more access to more books is a vision Google has never lost sight of," Drummond said. Drummond said that the Google Book Search program pre-dated the formation of the company. "Before the company was even founded, Larry and Sergey imagined a way to make it easier for anyone, anywhere, to access the information held within the world's books," he wrote in the Tuesday message. Revenue from books sold through the new registry effort and the advertising that is shown alongside preview versions would be split, with Google receiving 37 percent and the rest going to the separate and not-for-profit Book Rights Registry, Google said. Independent Non-Profit Book Rights Registry Created President of the Authors Guild Roy Blount Jr. praised the settlement with Google. "It’s hard work writing a book, and even harder work getting paid for it," Blount said. "As a reader and researcher, I’ll be delighted to stop by my local library to browse the stacks of some of the world’s great libraries. As an author, well, we appreciate payment when people use our work. This deal makes good sense," Blount added Tuesday. Some $45 million of the settlement was apportioned to compensate existing claims from authors and publishers whose works have already passed through Google's digital scanners without their permission, while additional portions of the $125 million total were to be used to cover legal fees, Google said. While some might downplay the significance of Google's efforts to monetize primarily old out-of-print books, this category represents most of the world's books, and the new Book Rights Registry includes provisions not only for living authors and publishers but also their heirs and successors. "Most of these books are difficult, if not impossible, to find. They are not sold through bookstores or held on most library shelves, yet they make up the vast majority of books in existence," Drummond said. New Monetization Options For Out-of-print Books If the settlement is approved, users of Google's leading search engine, which presently incorporates some results from Google Book Search, will have access to much more than a snippet preview of millions of books,  and may find the scanned version sold by Google their only way to acquire otherwise difficult to find out-of-print books. "We've seen millions of people click to buy books or find them in a library, and more than 20,000 publishers have joined our Partner Program to allow readers to preview the books they find before buying them," Drummond said. Out-of-print books could see new monetization opportunities according to Drummond. "For out-of-print books that in most cases do not have a commercial market, this opens a new revenue opportunity that didn't exist before," he said. U.S. educational institutions would be able to access the full content of millions of additional books through subscriptions available through Tuesday's settlement, which Google said would offer "a means for U.S. colleges, universities and other organizations to obtain subscriptions for online access to collections from some of the world’s most renowned libraries." Google Turns Another Page In Book Scanning Program With $125 Million Settlement Under the settlement Google also planned to offer both public and university libraries "free, full-text, online viewing of millions of out-of-print books," and called for the creation of new services to help people with disabilities such as visual impairment use the additional book content, according to Tuesday's announcement. Through the Book Rights Registry, copyright owners would have a way to request exclusion from the expanded U.S. Google Book Search program, giving authors and publishers control over access to their works, Google said. With the help of libraries at the Universities of California, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Stanford, Google Book Search has seen advances beyond what the Mountain View firm could do on its own, making Brin and Page's "original dream" even closer to becoming reality, Drummond said. Brin said that Tuesday's settlement would benefit Google users if approved. "While this agreement is a real win-win for all of us, the real victors are all the readers. The tremendous wealth of knowledge that lies within the books of the world will now be at their fingertips," Brin said. Related Links :
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11:09 pm on Oct. 28, 2008 (utc 0)