News Flash!

I'm not THE SOURCE of industry news, but I thought I would pass on that there is more news about the Google Books Settlement.

The lawsuit is a class action suit. Like everyone else who was a potential member of the class, I was notified of the lawsuit and given the option to opt in or out of the class.

There were writer's groups who filed Amicus Briefs, and somehow, ended up speaking for more than their members and negotiating a settlement for all of us.

The thing is, while I'm not totally opposed to scanning books, it seemed to me that the libraries did not have the rights to the books to consent to scanning to be used outside their library system, especially to generate money for the scanning entity, without regard to payment to the rights holders.

Then the thing went off on orphan works. You'll just have to read the stuff to figure it out. I opted out of the class which means I can bring my own suit rather than rely on the agreement reached in this suit.

Since the deadline to opt in or out came long before the agreement to a settlement, it was in my mind, agreeing to an unknown. I'm not saying the settlement is good or bad, I just didn't want to agree to something undefined. That is a lot like signing a blank contract.

So the lesson here is that as a writer, it is important to be aware of the industry news. That is what being part of something means - you know what is going on.

Read the Google blog here: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/11/modifications-to-google-books.html

And there is this: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1513464.php/German-publishers-criticize-new-Google-Books-deal

And there is this. I'm surprised about the extract comment since originally my understanding was full books - way back when (a couple of years ago): http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article6919335.ece

As I recall, long ago, when my first books went on Google Books, the revenue went to my publisher and there was (according to him) no plans to split it with me -- not Google's fault.