The Google Book Settlement has been modified!

[Michael Healy]

There can be very few people involved in the book industry that haven’t heard of the Google Book Settlement, but you may have missed the fact that a new version of the settlement was filed with the court late on November 13. What’s new about the revised settlement? The key changes affect the following areas:

The international scope of the settlement
Unclaimed works
Unclaimed funds
Future/potential business models
“Most favored nation” clause
Schedule for claiming and removing works

I’ve summarized what’s included in each of these changes below and provided a few links to other web sites for more detail.

• The international scope of the settlement has been narrowed. In its modified form, the settlement will only include books that were either registered with the U.S. Copyright Office or published in the U.K., Australia, or Canada. Each of these countries will have an author and publisher seat on the board of the Book Rights Registry.

• The Registry will now include a Court-approved fiduciary who will represent rightsholders of unclaimed books, act to protect their interests, and license their works to third parties, to the extent permitted by law.

• The new settlement agreement requires the Book Rights Registry to search for rightsholders who have not yet come forward and to hold revenue on their behalf. Revenue generated from unclaimed works may, after five years, be used to locate rightsholders, but will no longer be used for the Registry's general operations or redistributed to other rightsholders. The Registry may ask the court after 10 years to distribute these funds to nonprofits/charities benefiting rightsholders and the reading public, and may provide abandoned funds to the appropriate government authority in compliance with state property laws.

• Future business models as defined by the revised settlement have been narrowed to three: individual subscriptions, print-on-demand, and digital downloads. Google can implement none of these business models without approval of the Registry's board, and none can be implemented without notice to all claiming rightsholders, who will have the absolute right not to participate. (The Unclaimed Works Fiduciary will determine whether unclaimed works will participate in any future business models.) These changes don’t affect the previously defined business models that can be implemented when the settlement is approved: ad-supported previews, consumer online editions, page-fees for print-outs from public access terminals, and institutional subscriptions.

• The new version of the settlement removes the “most favored nation” clause contained in the previous version. The Registry will now be able to license unclaimed works to other parties without ever extending the same terms to Google.

• The modified settlement gives rightsholders more time to claim their cash payments (of between $60 and $300). The deadline has been extended to March 31, 2011. Also extended is the deadline for removing works from Google’s database. The new deadline is March 9, 2012.

If you want to learn more about what’s new with the settlement (and, just as important, what hasn’t changed), the Authors Guild and Google have information on their own web sites:

http://www.authorsguild.org/advocacy/articles/amended-settlement-fi...

http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/11/modifications-to-goo...

And if you want to read the Amended Settlement Agreement in its entirety (be warned – it’s a long document), you can download it from http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/.

And if you still want to learn more and are based in New York City, I’ll be talking about the Settlement, including the new changes, at a free seminar organized by The Publishing Point on November 18th. There are a few seats left, but you must register to attend.

[Mitch Ratcliffe]

The removal of the most-favored nation clause is a solid step in the right direction.

Will readers have a representative(s) on the BRR board? How is the BRR configured for transparency and independent governance?

[eric hellman]

Michael, Your statement that "The Registry will now be able to license unclaimed works to other parties" is very significant in that the perception given by revised-version critics is that it would take an act of Congress to allow that. I look forward to hearing the discussion!

[Michael Healy]

Thanks, Susan, for providing a link to the registration page for my talk - I forgot!

[Susan V. Danziger]

To register for this free seminar given by Michael Healy (organized by the Publishing Point), please go to: http://www.meetup.com/Publishing-Point/calendar/11662438/