Google Books and Copyright

I'm a great fan of Mike Masnick's Techdirt, except I do think they have an Achilles heel in their oft voiced views that all content can be free forever sustainably - this post on the recent Google Books Copyright settlement being typical. However, a more sanguine analysis (in my view) was posted by one of the commentators there (Techdirt is one of those great sites where the commentators are often as good as the writers) - its by a commentator called Lost Sailor, here it is in full:

For all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, and even though it's contrary to Mike's ardent desire that such content be "freed," this is not a bad agreement at all. Quite the opposite.

Now, I've only scanned through the actual text of the agreement, but it actually provides for far greater use of scanned books than Google might have been able to do if it just asserted its right of fair use.

First, it pretty much clears up any possible lawsuit by a publisher or author (assuming it's accepted by the court) and also shields the libraries that were participating in the project from any liability. It also provides Google with a competitive advantage now that publishers and authors will be even more encouraged to participate in the project since they know their rights are protected...and they'll get paid something.

Second, it allows for much wider use of digital copies of the books and provides Google with safe harbor. Google is allowed to fully display out-of-print or otherwise commercially available books that are still in copyright and will set up an automated process for making that determination. They can still provide limited display of "snippets" of the content for in-print and commercially available books.

Educational institutions and public libraries will get the rights to display all the books in-branch.

Participating libraries (i.e., those that make their collections available for scanning) have even greater latitude than they would have for using the digital copies they received back from Google.

All in all, while you may not have gotten the knock-down, drag-out fight you wanted to see, Mike, this agreement will get more books on to Google with much greater options for users to read and use the content much sooner. Cooperation between the publishers/authors, libraries, and Google will mean more books will be available for the service (and I'd anticipate a scenario where all newly published books are digitally sent to Google for the project automatically upon publication).

All because Google had the foresight to realize that publishers and authors have rights too, and that if reasonably addressed (and this is really quite a reasonable agreement), new cooperative models can actually be put into practice.

The way out of the current no win, free for all scenario is to hammer out workable copyright rules going forward. I couldn't have put it better, so I didn't - Lost Sailor, whoever you are, consider this a sincere form of flattery

Update - Larry Lessig reckons its a good deal as well:

IMHO, this is a good deal that could be the basis for something really fantastic. The Authors Guild and the American Association of Publishers have settled for terms that will assure greater access to these materials than would have been the case had Google prevailed. Under the agreement, 20% of any work not opting out will be available freely; full access can be purchased for a fee. That secures more access for this class of out-of-print but presumptively-under-copyright works than Google was initially proposing. And as this constitutes up to 75% of the books in the libraries to be scanned, that is hugely important and good. That's good news for Google, and the AAP/Authors Guild, and the public. (My favorable views about the AAP at least are not, of course, reciprocated.)

Nice to know Larry agrees with us