Re: orphans, doing something (was what are orphan works?)

[top posted]

Erica,

That really is an excellent outline. Jon, do you have a file section for references. This would do very well for a Google settlement explanation  page.

Joseph

Joseph Harris  -  Debt Control Man
author: Control Your Debt Crisis on Your Own Terms
blog: http://debtcontrolman.wordpress.com
http://www.controlyourdebtcrisis.co.uk
debt dictionary: http://www.controlyourdebtcrisis.co.uk/debtwiki/

 
From: "Erica Frank" 
> On 10/1/09, Mary E Tyler <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> You know, all this about "Google control" just rings of FUD to me. I
>>  can see naught in the settlement that says that Google is the ONLY
>>  company that can ever make this sort of deal.
> 
> It's not a "deal." Two sides didn't come together in a corporate
> meeting room and hammer out their differences to reach a mutually
> profitable arrangement.
> 
> It's a settlement agreement. It's a case of "some people sued Google
> for breaking the law, and Google agreed they screwed up, and instead
> of going to court and getting a ruling and maybe paying the full legal
> penalties, Google offered this instead." In this case, the "some
> people" have been expanded by legal magic to include "all registered
> copyright owners of books & inserts published in the US before 2009."
> (Set aside how many of those people's interests were actually
> addressed--that's the class of people supposedly involved, so that's
> the class who are affected by the ruling.)
> 
> Any *other* company that wanted the same arrangement would need to
> have the same circumstances: break the law by scanning & distributing
> sections of books, getting sued in a class-action lawsuit that named
> the same class of affect people, and THEN they can try to offer the
> same terms in lieu of a trial and potential ruling and penalty of up
> to $150,000 per book scanned w/o permission.
> 
> Nobody can say, "we want to open an archive; let's make a deal with
> all rightsholders who published before 2009." They can't say, "we want
> an archive of out-of-print books; let's make an arrangement with the
> US gov't to not let anyone sue us for including them, as long as we
> remove them by request."
> 
> The terms of the agreement are *not available* to anyone else.
> 
> All another company could do, is start scanning, and pray they can
> arrange the same class of people to sue them, and pray they can get
> the representatives of that class to accept the same terms instead of
> prosecuting.
> 
>> Nor does it say anywhere
>>  that the deal cannot be pre-empted by legislation
> 
> Legislation gets odd when it deals with terms of lawsuits. They become
> a weird kind of private contract.
> 
> A law that says "college students must reveal their medical records to
> the school," doesn't override a gag order from a settlment in the
> kid's preteen years.
> 
>> (though at least one
>>  congress person has said something to the effect that this is a topic
>>  that SHOULD be dealt with in legislation,
> 
> Absolutely. As much as I like what Google's trying to do here (I love
> the idea of an archive of out-of-print books for research purposes),
> they've arranged it in a way that gives them a monopoly. It's possible
> there's no way for them to arrange it otherwise--they can't make a
> settlement that allows other companies to break the same laws they
> broke and get the same terms in exchange.
> 
>> This deal could well become the blueprint for other
>>  deals. Or, it could die on the vine ensuring that congress will do
>>  nothing,
> 
> Right now, they're back to Square One: The authors' guild has accused
> Google of deliberate violation of copyright, with a potential penalty
> of up to $150,000 per book scanned. Google has a *strong* motivation
> to find a workable settlement.
> 
> And EVERYONE wants something useful out of this. Everyone likes the
> idea of online archives of obscure or otherwise unavailable materials.
> (Some people prefer that all that material is opt-in, rather than
> opt-out--but everyone hopes lots of people opt in.)
> 
> This situation may be the bump Congress needs to realize that
> copyright law is seriously broken; it's inhibiting obviously useful
> activities that can allow science, art, and profit for *many* people.
> 
> 
> -- 
> "I follow Eris blindly in all things. That She is the Goddess of Chaos
> simplifies this immensely."  -- Christian the Pagan
> 
> 
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