A federal judge is scheduled to decide Oct. 7 whether to approve a $125 million agreement to establish a “Book Rights Registry,” which would identify and compensate rights holders whose books have been scanned by Google. The governments of Germany and France have joined authors in the U.S., Japan and Europe to oppose the settlement, saying it doesnt give copyright owners enough choice about how their content is used.
“There are some good points the court cannot ignore” while some attacks are “unfair,” said Terence Ross, a copyright lawyer with Gibson Dunn & Crutcher in Washington who is following the case and doesnt represent either side. “He may ask the parties to go back, without rewriting the agreement from scratch, and address certain objections. Innovation often poses problems for the law and established bureaucracy.”
The settlement has become part of a larger fight over the future of digital books. Sales of electronic titles more than doubled to $61 million in the first six months of 2009, according to the Association of American Publishers in New York. Total U.S. book sales rose just 1.8 percent over that period.
Objections to the agreement were due this week. The U.S. Justice Department, which is investigating whether the plan violates antitrust law, has until Sept. 18 to weigh in on the issue. U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, who sentenced conman Bernard Madoff to 150 years in prison, will then oversee the Oct. 7 review.
Back to Life
A House Judiciary Committee hearing is scheduled for today with testimony expected from both sides and from Marybeth Peters, the register of copyrights at the Library of Congress. David Drummond, Googles chief legal officer, is set to testify.
Google was sued in 2005 by authors and publishers, who said the company was infringing their copyrights on a massive scale by digitizing books. The Mountain View, California-based company said a settlement struck last year will “bring back to life” millions of books that are sitting unread on library shelves or are out of print.
Amazon.com Inc. is part of a group that argues the agreement would give Google unfair control over a vast database of books. Sony Corp., which makes a digital-book reader that competes with Amazon.coms Kindle, works with Google to offer digital books and supports the settlement.
Settlement Changes
“I doubt the judge is going to just say, I disapprove it,” said June Besek, executive director of the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts at Columbia Law School, part of Columbia University in New York. “There is enough good in it, he might indicate what changes are needed and how it could be done.”
Authors in the U.S. are split on the agreement. “Wonder Boys” writer Michael Chabon and “Pay It Forward” author Catherine Ryan Hyde object, while satirist Dave Barry, “Presumed Innocent” writer Scott Turow and childrens author Judy Blume are among those who say they support it.
Favored Nation
Changes to the plan could include eliminating a provision that gives Google “most-favored nation status,” which means publishers pledge not to strike more favorable deals with Google rivals, and addressing how Google would use information on peoples reading habits, said Tom Selz, a copyright lawyer with Frankfurt, Kurnit, Klein and Selz in New York.
Google is “confident in our agreement,” said Jennie Johnson, a spokeswoman for the company. The company also said the agreement allows for court supervision.
Google rose $5.35 to $463.97 yesterday in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have gained 51 percent this year, compared with the 41 percent gain in the Standard & Poors 500 Information Technology Index.
Google has sought to highlight the benefits of creating a digital library. Civil rights groups say individuals with disabilities, people who live in poor neighborhoods and community college students would have access to the top-notch libraries like those at Harvard, Princeton and Columbia universities. Blind people would also benefit because digital books can be read aloud or shown on Braille displays, according to The National Federation of the Blind.
More Access
“It would give blind people more access to more books than we have had in all of human history,” said Chris Danielsen, a spokesman for the federation. “Google is the only one making sure these books are accessible to blind people. If it is derailed, it would be a huge setback for blind Americans.”