At first glance, today’s goal appears to be “monetizing the hard work and efforts of others”. But as Google’s collaboration with Chinese authorities demonstrates, this can easily morph into supporting authoritarians of all stripes.

Monopolizing knowledge simply furthers the march toward both outcomes.

In other words… If you’re not paranoid about Google, you’re simply not thinking.

For your readers benefits, as of 2/l9/09 it seems a Finnish authors association has advised its members opt out and sees the settlement and its registry structure as an effort by google to set up google’s control over US copyright materials as a
dominant factor world wide. The Canadian authors association set up an info seminar today in Canada, taking a more active role in educating authors about the settlement. There have also been web comments in Germany, Australia, Britain and many other country media. The Settlement document waffles on whether it would apply or be available outside the US. The settlement documents lets google delete/exclude scanned books for legal or editorial reasons, opening a door for foreign nation censorship of books on human sexuality, politics, religion,women’s rights.
Reading the above comments regarding libraries, it seems library administrators are delighted with the deal, but rank and file librarians are terrified by it. One big concern, PRIVACY OF USER INFORMATION. Will google fight court subpoenas for googlebook user histories, like libraries would, or would google merely produce user data on a routine basis? Dan Clancy’s comments seem to state that google will act with as much vigor to protect user information as the most protective of its member libraries, but I am not sure that is reflected yet in the settlement agreement or in any other binding document or statement of principles.

J.Garchik, Attorney

We encourage all interested parties to read the Settlement, or a good, independent summary of it, and then to assess for themselves whether our representations are “factually inaccurate” or “misleading,” as Dan Clancy has stated. We stand by our interpretations.

Let’s restate the obvious: libraries are not a partner to the Settlement. Only Google, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers will be signing the document. Although a few libraries participated in the negotiations, their interests did not animate the agreement, as is evident from revelations since the settlement was announced. One participant has written: “Libraries [were] not sitting at the head of the bargaining table, and they [were] not going to be able to get everything they wanted, or perhaps even much of what they wanted.” Furthermore, one of Google’s library partners, Harvard University, has refused to join the Settlement. Even Google’s biggest library supporters (Stanford, Michigan, and the University of California) have admitted that they “have not unanimously agreed to all aspects of the proposed settlement.” Other concerns from a library perspective can be found here, here, here, here, here–and of course Karen Coyle’s response on this blog.

The OCA seeks to foster the conditions that will allow libraries to flourish, to expand, and to continue to provide the greatest possible free access to human knowledge while at the same time preserving that knowledge. We don’t believe this settlement will nurture that ideal.

In the next few months, we will have more to say here about our growing concerns over the Settlement and its implications. We accept Dan’s invitation to foster a serious public debate about the agreement and the future it implies.