SLA Meets with Google Regarding Book Settlement

There has been an ongoing flurry of questions and concerns regarding the Google Book Settlement, a settlement that could expand individuals' and groups' online access to books in both electronic and print. The settlement still must be approved by a U.S. District Court of New York.

The Google settlement could be an amazing step forward, but at what cost—in dollars and liberties? Along with excitement about the good that could arise from the settlement (see Google Book Search Will Expand Access), there are also fears that it could compromise basic library values such as equal access to information, privacy, and intellectual freedom.

Last week, Derek Slater, Policy Analyst with Google, met with staff at SLA headquarters to discuss and address various concerns that have been voiced by SLA members over the settlement (Read settlement explanation). Though we discussed many issues, the conversation focused on four primary areas: institutional subscription pricing, privacy, intellectual freedom, and orphan works.

As a result of the meeting, Google has agreed to have a Dan Clancy, Engineering Director, Google Book Search, join us at the SLA 2009 Annual Conference & INFO-EXPO for SLA’s Public Policy Update. Join us Tuesday, 16 June 2009, 11:30 a.m.-1:00p.m. to hear an overview of the settlement, pose questions you may have, and voice your praises or concerns.

Comments

[Derek Slater]

Doug,

Thanks again for taking the time to meet with me.

We strongly believe in the tremendous benefits that this settlement agreement offers to Google, authors, publishers, libraries and readers. That said, we recognize that it is a complex agreement, and we want to engage people's questions and concerns. We have been talking not only with our library partners but also many other members of the library community over the last few months. We intend to continue these conversations over the months to come, and we appreciate the opportunity you've given Dan Clancy, Book Search's Engineering Director, to speak at the SLA Annual Conference.

Below, I have provided some responses to the topics of concerns you raised in this post and in our conversation. Before diving into the specific topics, I want to say a bit more about some of the ways that the agreement expands access to information and improves equity of access. Users across the country will be able to freely search millions of books, freely preview books, find books in local libraries and when desired purchase access to a book at a reasonable cost. Academic institutions will be able to purchase institutional subscriptions that provide access for all of their members. In short, the major research universities with their vast library collections, such as the impressive collections of the Universities of Michigan, California or Stanford, will be much easier for others to access.

Even the most under-resourced public library will have the ability, albeit limited, to provide free access to the corpus. That means that people all over the country, no matter where they are or whether they are affiliated with universities, will have access to their outstanding collections. Each of these improvements in equity of access occurs even without any library acquiring a single subscription.

In addition, as part of this agreement, Google will be providing these services to people with print disabilities. These are patrons that currently feel the inequity of access most severely and for whom the settlement provides a huge leap forward as accessible versions of books will available to them. As Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, said: “Access to the printed word has historically been one of the greatest challenges faced by the blind. The agreement between Google and authors and publishers will revolutionize access to books for blind Americans.” (http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1595939/google_settlement_with_authors_publishers_will_have_positive_results_for/)

For more information about the settlement:
http://books.google.com/settlement

For those who own or think they may own a U.S. copyright interest, there is more information about the settlement at the claims settlement website:
http://books.google.com/booskrightsholders

Now, onto your concerns:

Institutional Subscription Pricing

Google believes that it is critical to price the institutional subscription in a manner that ensures broad access to this important resource. As such, the settlement agreement requires the price to be “governed by two objectives: (1) the realization of revenue at market rates for each Book and license on behalf of Rightsholders and (2) the realization of broad access to the Books by the public, including institutions of higher education." The agreement does not specify a price at this time since we still do not know how many books will be included or which books will be included. Furthermore, we wanted the ability to spend time talking to members of the community to try and determine a set of prices.

The agreement envisions differential pricing for different types of institutions specifically to help ensure broad access to the database. The price will vary based upon the subscriber's Carnegie classification, which is how many subscriptions are priced priced and increases the ability of different types of schools to be able to afford the subscriptions.

I would like to point out that the Books Rights Registry created by the settlement is not designed to settle disputes over pricing. We need to reach agreement on pricing with the Books Rights Registry prior to offering the subscription. If we are unable to reach agreement, then we have the ability to go to an arbitrator to resolve our dispute and ensure that the pricing is based upon the objective listed above.

In addition, libraries that partner with us under the settlement can bring arbitration against Google if they believe the pricing for higher education institutions is too high and does not satisfy the "broad access" objective. If the arbitrator agrees, then Google will pay the difference between the current price and what the arbitrator says the price should be.

Again, it is important to emphasize that the institutional subscription is just one point of access to these books. Readers will be able to search and preview millions of books for free, as well as purchase complete online access to books. Public libraries will be able to provide free, full-text viewing at a designated computer, and university libraries will be able to offer this access at one or more computers, depending on the number of full-time equivalent students at their institution.

Privacy

As we have not yet designed the product, we have not yet designed its privacy protections. However, Google understands that privacy is important to libraries and their patrons and the settlement agreement provides us with the freedom to design privacy protections into the product. We fully intend to do so.

Having an appropriate privacy policy is critical to the acceptance of this product within the library market. In general, we will conform to market standards. For example, for authentication we will be using IP authentication and will also support systems such as Shibboleth that are used within this community.

We are actively engaged in discussion with library and public interest groups to get input on an appropriate privacy policy, and we’ll have more to say about this as we work through the product design.

Intellectual Freedom

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful, and advancing free expression is central to that goal. Our record on access to other corpuses of information speaks to our commitment to access. For example, we continue to be the only search engine that clearly discloses and links to ChillingEffects.org when we remove material from our search results – even for reasons that most librarians would consider not worthy of comment, such as for removals of child pornography.

To be very clear, Google does not plan to omit any books from the service, just as we have not omitted any books from our scanning based on their content or copyright status. The settlement is about United States access and we are strongly supported by good United States law protecting speech.

But you don't have to take our word for it. Section 3.7(e) makes clear that any editorial exclusions will be communicated to the Book Rights Registry and that the Registry, along with partner libraries, will be able to provide access to any editorially excluded books. Our recent agreement with the University of Michigan also includes terms that will require us to tell our library partners about exclusion decisions (Section 10(e) in the collective terms). (see: http://www.lib.umich.edu/mdp/amendment.html)

Some people have asked questions about Section 7.2(e) of the agreement. Section 7.2(e) states that if Google fails to provide certain required services for at least 85% of the Books that have been scanned from our library partners, then these partners have the ability to find an alternative provider and Google is obligated to provide this provider with all of the scans that we have made under the settlement agreement. The required services include free search, the inclusion of a "find it in a library link" and the inclusion of books where authorization has been provided in the institutional subscription and the public access service. The threshold of 85% was established since the remedy in this case is quite extreme. While this was initially designed to address a situation where Google goes out of business or stops offering the service, we included a fairly aggressive threshold to also address other situations.

None of the parties involved believe this provision will ever be triggered. However, since the agreement will last for a long time, all of the parties wanted to include a provision that ensured that this resource would be available for generations to come even as Google changes over the years. Again, Google does not plan to omit any books from the service.

Orphan Works

As we discussed on our blog this week, the settlement increases access to out-of-print books, including a subset that some refer to as "orphans." (See: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/06/google-book-search-settlement-and.html)

The settlement covers books that Google scans from libraries’ collections, the majority of which may be in copyright but are out-of-print. These books would ordinarily be hard to access, and one of the principal benefits of the settlement agreement is that it allows people to search, preview, and purchase access to them.

The settlement will also make it far easier for anyone -- including Google's competitors -- to license the use of most out-of-print books. As authors and rightsholders claim their books under the settlement, information about what books have been claimed and who claimed them will be made publicly available, allowing others to take advantage of this information. What's more, the independent, not-for-profit Book Rights Registry will be able to license other services on behalf of rightsholders who want it to do so.

While the majority of all book titles are out-of-print, only a minority of them are what some people call “orphans.” This term isn’t defined in U.S. law and people disagree on the definition, but it typically refers to in-copyright works whose owners cannot be identified or found.

As “parent” rightsholders claim their books through the Book Rights Registry, we think it will become clear that most out-of-print books are not actually “orphans.” Books that were once difficult for anyone to license will become books that are very easy for everyone to license, either through the Book Rights Registry or directly from their owners. Furthermore, many books that some think are in-copyright orphans (including a large percentage from 1963 or before) are actually out-of-copyright, and Google is working to make more information available that can clarify their copyright status. (see: http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2008/06/us-copyright-renewal-records-available.html)

Of course, some rightsholders may still be too difficult to find. Under the settlement Google will be able to open up access to truly orphaned books, but we still think more needs to be done to allow anyone and everyone to use these works. Any company or organization that wants to open up access to this untapped resource should be able to do so. The settlement is not a panacea, since it only covers a subset of orphaned works, provides only certain uses, and is not able to extend these uses to other providers. The need for comprehensive orphan works legislation is not diminished.

That's why Google has been working for years to pursue legislation to provide meaningful avenues for any entity to use orphaned works. We first explained our views to the Copyright Office on this subject over four years ago, and it will remain one of Google's priorities to work to pass effective orphan works legislation. (For our past submissions: http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/comments/OW0681-Google.pdf; http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/comments/reply/OWR0134-Google.pdf

Fortunately, there isn't an either-or choice between legislation and the settlement. While we work with others towards a comprehensive orphan works solution, the settlement agreement takes one important step towards opening up access to orphaned books in the meantime. If the agreement is approved, anyone across the nation -- from a school child in rural America to a blind PhD candidate -- will have an easy way to go online and read books that would otherwise be hard to access. We are excited about making that possible.

I hope this answers your questions, and I would be happy to talk further with you. I look forward to continuing the conversation, and I hope your members enjoy speaking with Dan at the conference.

Take care,
Derek Slater

[Moncler Jacka]

I just sent this post to a bunch of my friends as I agree with most of what you’re saying here and the way you’ve presented it is awesome.

[peuterey Herren]

I hope this answers your questions, and I would be happy to talk further with you.