Google-corp? Include me out
I have opted out. Nobody right now may be rushing to obtain erights to your out-of-print titles or books published prior to 2009 but this is only temporary. I opted out because I will not surrender my erights in perpetuity for a pittance to Google Corporation. Note that they offer to pay “net” of expenses. Net of expenses is called “monkey points” by writers in the movie business because net of expenses tends to inspire creative accounting on collectors’ parts. Collectors benefit first; writers are paid last. Net means whatever’s left after the Registry has deducted its own (unknown) operating costs. The Registry is not a neutral, altruistic, collection service for writers and publishers. It is the collection arm of the Google Corporation.
The Fairness Hearing on June 11th will, by no means, be a rubber stamp. This proposed Settlement is now under serious attack by the American Library Association, Harvard Law school, the New York Law School and Berkeley Law (and Technology) school, among others. High-profile, funded lawyers are preparing arguments that Google is violating anti-Trust laws. They will be pressing that this settlement go for further review to the anti-Trust branch of the U.S. Government.Approximately 90% of American writers are simply ignoring this settlement, either out of indifference or because their lawyers are advising them to do so. I quote The New York Times: Marybeth Peters, the United States Registrar of Copyrights, called the agreement “a compulsory license for the benefit of one company.”
Writers, please do not be complacent about your e-rights. I cannot stress this more strongly. These rights are your intellectual property and will steadily increase in value as the overhaul of the publishing industry proceeds.
