India is the latest country to raise a strong protest against Google’s plans to use books they have scanned to publish and sell online. In a post last week I described how Google got permission from libraries in the US to scan books in order to use the information for search queries. Since then a US court ruling has given Google permission to use the scanned books to publish and sell if publishers and authors don’t opt out.
The settlement, agreed in October 2008, has since been queried by the US Department of Justice, and groups were given the opportunity to file objections up until January 28th for a new final hearing on February 18th. The settlement was agreed as a class action with the Authors Guild of America because a large representative body can be used for this kind of agreement in the US. The Authors Guild is large enough even though it’s not international and not even the main organisation for writers in the US. The US Justice Department raised doubts over the copyright and antitrust legality of the agreement.
More details on this story here http://www.blog.geid.co.uk and I’ll be following it as it progresses. It’s essential for authors and publishers to be aware of this case as it will affect copyright law and it seems not enough people know what’s happening.
admin
7 months ago
Thanks for this Adele, we have shared this on our Facebook page. It is amazing how few authors know of this.