1. The Google Book Settlement:
What it means for Canadian
libraries, universities and
researchers*
Tony Horava
University of Ottawa
CRKN AGM, Oct 8, 2009
* Several of these slides are
taken from a presentation
jointly made with Sian Meikle,
University of Toronto

2. Overview
Quick survey of proposed settlement
Access to Google Books
Copyright issues
Marketplace impacts
Competition issues
Privacy matters
Academic freedom
Questions and conclusion.
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3. Google Book Search
Started in 2004
42 Library Partners & Publisher Partners program
Google-funded
In-copyright and out-of-copyright material
– Google and selected library partner servers only
10 million books to date:
– 2 million public domain (20%)
– 7.5 million in copyright, out of print (75%)
– 0.5 million in copyright, in print (5%)
Eventual aim: 30 million books
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4. Proposed Google Books Settlement
2005
– US class-action lawsuit against Google
– American Publishers Association
– American Authors Guild
October 28 2008
– proposed settlement announced
– Possible outcomes:
accept, reject, or court oversight
– Changing the agreement is not an option
Nov 9 2009 (moved from June 11 09)
– Sept 18: US Department of Justice advises Court not to
accept settlement but to encourage further discussion
– Sept 24: Court accepts motion to delay final hearing;
will hold status conference on Nov 9 instead – a modified
agreement to be presented.
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5. Google Books Settlement outline
Covers online access in the US for books only:
– published before January 5 2009
– covered by Berne copyright convention (164 countries)
– “Could” cover books published after above date
Google pays $125 million
– $34.5 million to establish Book Registry
– $45 million to rights holders for books scanned prior to
May 2009 ($60 per title)
– $45.5 million for legal fees
Split of future revenues:
– 63% to copyright holders
– 37% to Google
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6. Google Books Settlement – products
Display uses (saleable products):
– Access, preview, snippets, book records
Non display uses (free and research products):
– Display of metadata only; full-text and geographic indexing
without display of text; analytical research across corpus; and
Google R&D
Inclusion:
– In print books: need to opt-in to display uses
– Out of print books: need to opt-out of display uses
– In print = commercially available in USA and Europe
Products:
– Individuals: sale of perpetual access per title via Google
server
– Institutions: sale of annual access to ISD
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7. Book Rights Registry
Non-profit independent agency representing plaintiff
interests to:
– Manage rights database: copyright status, contact
information, rights information
– Negotiates terms and prices of online book uses
on behalf of rights holders
– Distribute share of revenue to rights holders, based
on formula in agreement
– The Registry does not have to be made public.
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8. The ‘Research Corpus’
Represents all Google books except in-copyright works whose rights
holders have removed their works
Hosted at Google, up to two other mirror sites
‘Non-consumptive’ research:
– linguistic analysis, automated translation, book relationships,
index/search techniques
 If qualified users want to search the Research Corpus for ‘non
consumptive’ research, e.g. textual or linguistic analysis, their research
agenda needs to be approved by the host institution
 “Research Agenda” means a document that describes a research
project in sufficient detail to demonstrate that it will be Non-Consumptive
Research” (p. 17 of Settlement)
 Host institution is responsible. What will the criteria be?
 This will certainly conflict with academic freedom…fundamental values
will be at play
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9. What has the reaction been?
Positive:
– Enormous corpus representing our cultural
heritage that is available to wide audience
– Lack of ‘Orphan works’ legislation in US Congress
is bypassed. NB- orphan works are those for which
the rights holder is unknown or un-locatable.
Concerns:
– A de facto monopoly & copyright issues
– Pricing
– Intellectual freedom & Equity of access
– Privacy
– Long-term security of data
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10. Copyright and monopoly challenges
Raises public policy issues regarding the delicate balance between
public and private good; how does it reflect upon the nature of
copyright in a digital world?
The interests of one group (known rights holders) are pitted against
another (absent rights holders or orphans) in relation to revenue
sharing and pricing.
Can a class-action settlement provide equity for economic rights
and address the public good?
Compulsory licensing via class action settlement is supplanting
copyright legislation as the driver for reproducing and
disseminating in-copyright books (in a commercial model) to our
collective cultural heritage – enormous risk for the stewardship
role of libraries.
What if Google’s business model completely changes in twenty
years?
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11. Copyright and monopoly challenges (2)
The Registry will not be available to the public - a key
tool is being developed privately
The board of the Registry will have no librarian or reader
representation… this is very problematic for a
balanced approach to copyright, access, and pricing.
Will have a damper effect on Open Access and Creative
Commons licensing – an ‘institutional bias’
(Samuelson) against it. How will this affect the long-
term plans of the Open Content Alliance, for example
No other provider can be offered license terms better
than Google’s for ten years – creates a virtual
monopoly and enormous lead time advantage.
Google has exclusive right to digitize the orphan
works.
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12. Pricing concerns
Pricing to be determined by: the pricing of similar
products & services; the scope of books available; the
quality of the scan; and features offered via the
subscription
The settlement refers to two broad goals: 1)Market
realization of revenues for rights holders, and 2)
Broad access by the public including institutions of
higher education …to be based on “comparable
products and services”. But which ones?.
Could lead to a widening of the digital divide between
wealthier and poorer libraries.
Lack of balance in these two objectives is a key reason
for postponement.
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13. Intellectual Freedom and Equity of Access
Google can exclude a book for editorial reasons: on what basis? Pressure
from governments or powerful interest groups could have an important
impact, e.g. Google saving itself from embarrassment or bad PR by
suppressing a controversial book
The Settlement requires Google to provide public access and the ISD for
only 85% of the in-copyright, not commercially available books
(potentially 1M books)
Censorship & freedom of expression – another conflict with library values
Works within works might be excluded, depending on rights holder
exercising his rights independently, eg an essay, a poem, a chart or a
table
The Settlement doesn’t include pictorial works, eg photographs and
illustrations will be blacked out.
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14. Privacy concerns
Google has an unprecedented opportunity to monitor
and track user reading habits, eg when a user prints
out pages from a book in the ISD, there will be a
visible watermark displaying encrypted session
information “which could be used to identify the
authorized user that printed the material or the access
point from which the material was printed” (art 4.1)
“For purchases of online e-book access or access via
institutional subscriptions, Google will have the
technical ability to track every page that one views,
even recording how long is spent on a page.” (Alan
Inouye, ALA)
For which purposes will Google collect data?
What are the safeguards against misuse of data?
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15. Questions
Google is becoming a digital library of mammoth proportions - the purpose
of our libraries and in particular our collections will be questioned.
How do we partner with Google to take advantage of this dizzying
opportunity for ‘’ breathing new commercial life into millions of long
forgotten, commercially unavailable works”
Can library values be respected in a modified settlement?
Can a modified settlement allow Google, publishers, and authors to find
compromise between private and public interests? Will it lead to
‘copyright peace’? (Department of Justice filing)
How does it impact or challenge the ways in which students, researchers
and others access culture, and enhance, collaborate, and produce new
cultural works for education and scholarship?
We need to monitor developments closely, and engage in vigorous,
balanced advocacy with our stakeholders, and show support for US
libraries & organizations that are raising serious concerns
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16. Conclusion
• The Google Books Settlement offers much
opportunity but many challenges - we need to monitor
developments closely, engage in vigorous, balanced
advocacy with our stakeholders, and show support for
US libraries & organizations that have made their
submissions (filings available in the Public Index)
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