The Google Book Settlement - What this means for Williams College
Although
the settlement potentially offers access to millions of books, there are issues
of particular concern.
- Many
fear the potential of a Google monopoly.
The Justice Department has launched an investigation into whether
the settlement would violate antitrust laws. Academic librarians underscore what the
settlement implies about (un)equal access to information, and the effect a
monopoly would have on the future of library subscription costs.
- User
privacy has been not addressed, and we have no idea how our community's
use of Google content may be captured and exploited.
More
information about Google's current project:
As of early 2009, Google Book Search
comprised seven million books. Of these:
- One
million are in the public domain and can be downloaded in their entirety.
- Fewer
than one million are in copyright and in print; those supplied by
publishers often have only limited previews or no preview at all.
- Items
not in the public domain have only snippet previews; this group includes
five million works in copyright but out of print, including orphan works.
Details
regarding who will see what under the proposed settlement:
Google will continue to scan
in-copyright books, and continue to allow all users to search the content.
- Google
will display up to 20% of an out of print book's content, with displays
differing according to the type of work, ex: fiction vs. non-fiction. This is more than Google currently
allows through snippet previews.
- Users
will not be able to print out or copy-and-paste preview displays.
- There
will be no snippets for in print books except through rightsholders'
agreement.
- Google
will earn money through advertising and by selling access to the full text
of out of print books: Google will keep 37%, and the remaining 63% will go
into the Books Rights Registry (BRR) for distribution to rightsholders.
Individual users will be able to
purchase permanent online access to the full text of an out of print book; this
is in effect an online license for as long as Google is around.
- Google
and the rightsholder/s will set the price of the book. The rightsholder can even set the price
at $0.
- A
user will be able to cut-and-paste up to 4 pages with a single command, or
print up to 20 pages with a single command.
Google will provide free Public Access
Service (PAS) to each public library and not-for-profit higher education
institution that requests it. Williams
would get access at only one terminal.
- The
user at the PAS terminal will be able to download the full text of all
books in the Institutional Subscription Database (ISD) which will include
the out of print books.
- A
user will be able to print pages for a 'reasonable' per page fee set by
the BRR, but will not be able to cut-and-paste.
Google will sell access to the ISD to
colleges.
- The
subscribing institution will authorize particular users (faculty,
students, staff, etc.).
- Access
will continue only for the duration of the subscription.
- Google
and the BRR will set the price of access to the ISD and price will be
based upon the number of FTE users.
Libraries that contribute books to the ISD can receive a discount
based on the number of titles that come from their collections.
- Under
this model users will be able cut-and-paste and print as if they had
purchased individual access to the book.
- Authorized
users will be able to make books available to other authorized users
through hyperlinks, etc. for course use such as e-reserves.
More
information about the suit:
The suit is extremely complicated. The points above have been snipped or
summarized from several sites and documents.