L. Gordon Crovitz: Google Searches for Property Rights
[Gordon Crovitz is a media and information industry advisor and executive, including former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, executive vice president of Dow Jones and president of its Consumer Media Group.]
The biggest book deal ever is about to come under attack. Google reached a $125 million legal settlement last year with book publishers and authors so that it could digitize some 18 million books. A federal judge will soon review its terms, with the Justice Department likely urging adjustments to avoid antitrust issues. Authors are complaining about their paltry share from the settlement. Librarians warn about the implications of one company having the only clear rights to old, out-of-print books.
Still, people will cheer Google for its audacious goal: to restore access to the 60% of books—some 10 million—that are under copyright but out of print and unavailable in any medium.
The prospect of easy online access to once-lost information is an exciting example of how technology can restore knowledge, but this is only part of the story. The less happy part is that it took a complex legal settlement among Google, publishers and authors to establish property rights that are clear and enforceable enough to give Google the confidence it needs to make inaccessible books accessible.
The problem is "orphan works," a phrase that refers to books still under copyright but no longer supported by publishing efforts. These books are in a netherworld where the rights holders cannot easily be found by anyone who wants to distribute the books, because no ownership records are kept. This empty property right is the ultimate fate of most books published in the U.S., even now that digital copies are so easy to maintain, search and share. The Google settlement thus brings back millions of books that had been lost...
Read entire article at The Wall Street Journal
The biggest book deal ever is about to come under attack. Google reached a $125 million legal settlement last year with book publishers and authors so that it could digitize some 18 million books. A federal judge will soon review its terms, with the Justice Department likely urging adjustments to avoid antitrust issues. Authors are complaining about their paltry share from the settlement. Librarians warn about the implications of one company having the only clear rights to old, out-of-print books.
Still, people will cheer Google for its audacious goal: to restore access to the 60% of books—some 10 million—that are under copyright but out of print and unavailable in any medium.
The prospect of easy online access to once-lost information is an exciting example of how technology can restore knowledge, but this is only part of the story. The less happy part is that it took a complex legal settlement among Google, publishers and authors to establish property rights that are clear and enforceable enough to give Google the confidence it needs to make inaccessible books accessible.
The problem is "orphan works," a phrase that refers to books still under copyright but no longer supported by publishing efforts. These books are in a netherworld where the rights holders cannot easily be found by anyone who wants to distribute the books, because no ownership records are kept. This empty property right is the ultimate fate of most books published in the U.S., even now that digital copies are so easy to maintain, search and share. The Google settlement thus brings back millions of books that had been lost...