On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 9:59 AM, Carcharoth <carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 2:17 PM, Gwern Branwen
<gwern0(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 3:34 AM, Carcharoth
<carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com> wrote:
It seems a settlement has been reached between
Google Books and those
taking action against it. Anyone here know what this means in terms of
what we do and how we use Google Books?
http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/
Carcharoth
I can't speak to the issues of exclusivity everyone was worrying
about, but it seems to be a win for Google Books in respect to orphan
works:
http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/#3
"# In-copyright but out-of-print books
Out-of-print books aren’t actively being published or sold, so
the only way to procure one is to track it down in a library or used
bookstore. When this agreement is approved, every out-of-print book
that we digitize will become available online for preview and
purchase, unless its author or publisher chooses to "turn off" that
title. We believe it will be a tremendous boon to the publishing
industry to enable authors and publishers to earn money from volumes
they might have thought were gone forever from the marketplace."
Notice that it's opt-out, which for a real orphan work means no one
will opt-out. Preview is better than nothing, for us. (It was
unrealistic to expect Google to be able to offer full downloads.)
My question would be: if Google can charge for full downloads of their
scans of orphan (out-of-print) works still in copyright, can others do
the same? If I had a copy of a work still in copyright but
out-of-print, and scanned it, and sold the scans, and then stopped if
the publisher contact me (i.e. asked for it to be "switched off") what
am I doing differently to what Google are doing?
For me, the exciting thing is being able to get full downloads, even
if at a price, rather than ordering through a rare or secondhand book
website. Dunno what that Google price will be though...
Carcharoth
I don't think they're offering downloads, per se.
"When this agreement is approved, every out-of-print book that we
digitize will become available online for preview and purchase, unless
its author or publisher chooses to "turn off" that title."
"When this agreement is approved, every out-of-print book that we
digitize will become available online for preview and purchase, unless
its author or publisher chooses to "turn off" that title."
I don't remember ever seeing any downloads offered for any works -
just the dead-tree versions. Which implies that the orphan works will
get the same treatment.
(Still, if they're showing the entire orphan work, means one can
download it with some scripting.)
--
gwern