Re: Authors, publishers, settle suit with Google

[Lesley Harris <lesleyeharris@comcast.net>]

The settlement was in response to 2 law suits against Google in 
2005, by the Authors Guild and the American Association of 
Publishers -- so the settlement can only apply to the law suits 
and these U.S. groups.

Lesley Ellen Harris
lesley @ copyrightlaws.com
www.copyrightanswers.blogspot.com


On Oct 31, 2008, at 9:21 PM, Jan Szczepanski wrote:

> I thought copyright was something legal and not something you can
> buy! Maybe that is the American way but are European libraries or
> any library outside the US part of this deal? Or do we have to
> add an C) to Karl Bridges list?
>
> Jan
>
> Karl Bridges wrote:
>
>> Well, this is good for libraries if A) the licensing costs are
>> reasonable and B)they provide MARC data.  I expect many libraries
>> would prefer to integrate the books into their catalog and they
>> would need that information -- rather than go through Google.
>>
>> On the legal side, it seems complicated.  In many cases, the
>> author's rights are in their long settled estates. Does this
>> mean, for example, in order for Google to pay the royalties on
>> out of copyright materials that these cases would have to be
>> reopened in probate court to determine the disposition of the
>> revenues?  Just determining who the heirs are to some long
>> deceased author would seem to be a large problem in itself.
>>
>> Karl Bridges
>> University of Vermont