but the one imposed on Canadian writers by Google Inc. was disconcerting, to say the least.

Since 2004, the search engine giant has quietly gone about scanning millions of books found in American libraries, including thousands by Canadian copyright holders who were never consulted, and did not grant their permission. Having built up this digital treasure trove with a variety of commercial aims in mind, Google agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit for massive copyright infringement brought by the Authors Guild of America, offering to pay $125-million (U.S.) in “thank-you” money, for wont of a better phrase, to publishers and their authors.

A deadline of Sept. 4 was established for all those caught up in the scanning project, however involuntarily. Authors could either “opt in” to the terms of the settlement, or “opt out” – thus retaining the right to sue Google down the road.

Because American copyright law doesn’t clearly distinguish between international works published by a U.S. company and works that pop up in an American library, virtually all of world literature and scholarship has become fair game for these settlement terms. Canadian authors have been left scrambling to protect their intellectual ownership without any sense of the long-term implications.

It isn’t even clear what can be gained from “opting out,” since Google has no legal obligation to remove the books it has already scanned. The company is currently doing so merely as a matter of “good faith.” (American conservative Christopher Buckley wants none of that. “Whenever I hear capitalism proclaiming noble motives, something makes me check my wallet,” he observed recently of the settlement.) “This is a pivotal moment in the history of access to recorded information,” Susan Benton, president of the Urban Libraries Council, wrote in an Aug. 19 letter to U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, who has been tasked with reviewing the deal.

A brief filed to the court by Amazon.com is typical of the slow-dawning sense of alarm being expressed: the settlement terms, Amazon charged, “are the stuff of anti-trust nightmares.”

For one thing, Amazon and all other book sellers and libraries unassociated with Google will be precluded from digitizing out-of-print and orphaned works in the public domain. Moreover, works will be deemed to be orphaned if their authors don’t sign Google’s Books Registry. As the Writer’s Union of Canada points out in its brief to the court: “Authors should not lose control over their works because they fail to sign up in a registry in another country.”

It is unacceptable to be bossed around and held to deadlines in this fashion by foreign interests. Canadians who publish books, including everyone from the leader of the federal Liberals to business people, historians, doctors and poets, deserve more than a meagre opt in/opt out say in the future of their collective intellectual property.

Globe and Mail, Editorial Page, Monday, Sept. 07, 2009

http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/r/enter_opt_out

A growing number of writers’ organizations around the world have unequivocally condemned the Google Books Settlement. Here is only a partial but rapidly-growing list of objectors:

• New Zealand Society of Authors:
“If New Zealand’s laws and international treaties are not to be over-ridden by the arbitrary and oppressive conduct of private interests beyond our shores, the government must do everything in its power to ensure that the intellectual property of New Zealanders cannot be used by Google or anyone else without the explicit consent of the copyright holders.”
http://tvnz.co.nz/technology-news/nz-authors-wary-google-scanning-project-2929652
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0908/S00269.htm

• Australian Society of Authors:
“With its access to 100% of orphaned books Google blocks all other companies from obtaining an equivalent license, opening the possibility, as Harvard Professor Robert Darnton puts it, of raising the price of access to ‘unbearable levels’.  We do not accept that the goal spelled out in the agreement to reach as many customers as possible is an adequate safeguard against unbearably high prices particularly since the agreement will be imposed throughout the world, for as long as publishing and the world lasts, by managers and owners who, far from being parties to the agreement, or aware of it, are not yet born.”
From filing #102 to Fairness Hearing Court:
http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2005cv08136/273913/102/

• The National Writers’ Union (USA)
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/national-writers-union-opposes-google-book-settlement/

• European Booksellers Federation
http://www.teleread.org/2008/11/14/european-booksellers-federation-criticizes-google-settlement/
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6619104.html

• American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA)
Their website: http://www.asja.org/google/

• Society of Media Photographers, Graphic Artists Guild,  The Picture Archive Council  of America,  The North America nature Photography Association, and several individual photographers.
Court filing:
http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2005cv08136/273913/218/

• The Open Book Alliance: coalition of nonprofit groups, individuals and library associations. Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo are supporting this coalition. To quote their lawyer: “This deal has enormous, far-reaching anticompetitive consequences that people are just beginning to wake up to.”
Members of the alliance are beginning to file separately with the court.
Amazon: http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2005cv08136/273913/206/

• The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Association. “SFWA believes that the proposed Google Book settlement is fundamentally flawed and should be rejected by the court.”
Their website:
http://www.sfwa.org/2009/08/sfwa-statement-on-proposed-google-book-settlement/
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/43863/118/

• The William Morris Endeavor Agency, which represents hundreds of high-profile authors, has advised them to opt out.  “Now they’ve got this license to sell your books at a pre-negotiated one-time royalty that you’re stuck with unless a court changes the settlement,”
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/07/william-morris-advises-clients-to-say-no-to-google-settlement/

• The German government has hired an American law firm (Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton) to submit a friend-of-the-court brief, opposing Google. About 2700 people, including German authors Gunter Grass and Daniel Kehlman, have signed a petition asking the government to help scuttle the settlement.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/technology/internet/24iht-books.html?pagewanted=2
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4619278,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf
Court filing: http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2005cv08136/273913/179/0.pdf

• Publishers of Germany, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland and South Africa have filed what one lawyer describes as a “furious” objection to the settlement.
Court filing: http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2005cv08136/273913/167/

• A coalition of Dutch publishers has followed.  Their letters are similar, but here’s one:
http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2005cv08136/273913/221/

• The copyright agencies (analogous to Access Copyright) of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Spain, have advised authors to opt out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/technology/internet/24iht-books.html?pagewanted=2

In addition, individual writers or their heirs have also formally protested:

• Arlo Guthrie and others have filed an objection with the court: http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2005cv08136/273913/209/
Guthrie’s very interesting personal letter follows:  http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2005cv08136/273913/210/

• Gillian Spraggs, an English poet, translator, and historian: “The lack of representation of non-US rights-holders is troubling for many reasons. US and foreign authors and publishers cannot be said to have identical interests in the management of the Registry and the proposed operation of the book service.”
New York Law School blog: http://laboratorium.net/archive/2009/08/20/gbs_gillian_spraggs_foreign_author_does_not_like_t

• John Steinbeck’s heir, Gail Steinbeck states: “It would be a shame to have to go back to Congress and/or the courts in a few years to ask them to split up a monopoly, when we have the chance to stop it in its tracks right now.”
http://www.devoredemarco.com/pdf/4-27-09-NYTimes-Steinbeck-Heirs-Seek-to-Slow-Google-Books-Settlement.pdf

• Christopher Buckley (William F.’s son, and a conservative author) has opted out, saying: “Whenever I hear capitalism proclaiming noble motives, something makes me check my wallet.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/technology/internet/19google.html

• Scott E. Gant, a lawyer-author and member of Washington law firm Boies Schiller & Flexner  has filed a sweeping objection to the settlement:  “… this proposed settlement is so flawed that the class members are truly better off with no settlement.”
Court filing: http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2005cv08136/273913/143/

• Joseph Hall (of Kellog, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel) filed an appearance, with intent to object on behalf of a list of “putative plaintiff’s class members” including: Elliot Abrams, Charlotte Allen, Phyllis Ammons, Richard Armey, Jacques Barzun, Nicholas Basbanes, Stephen Bates, Shawn J. Bayern, Jack Beerman, Michael Behe, Michael Cox, Douglas Crase, Frank Gonzalez-Crussi, Midge Decter, John Derbyshire, Thomas M. Disch, Gerald Early, Mel Eisenberg, Richard A. Epstein, Henry Fetter, David D. Friedman, David Gelernter, Gabrielle Glaser, Mary Ann Glendon, Victor Davis Hanson, Robert Herbold, Arthur Herman, Charles Hill, Manuela Hoelterhoff, Richard Howard, Ishmael Jones, Donald Kagan, David Kuo, Michael Ledeen, Susan Lee, Mary Lefkowitz, David Lehman, John Lehman, Howard Markel, Sherwin B. Nuland, Steven Ozment, Michael Perry, Norman Podhoretz, Diane Ravitch, Ralph Reed, Harriet Rubin, Sarah Ruden, Peter Schweizer, Roger Simon, Roy Spencer, Geoffrey R. Stone, Charles Sykes, Terry Teachout, Paco Underhill, Ruth Wisse, Elizabeth Wurtzel, John Yoo, Harold Bloom
http://laboratorium.net/archive/2009/08/25/gbs_the_storm_clouds_gather
http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2005cv08136/273913/147/

• There is also a flood of protest from organizations such as Consumer Watchdog, Berkeley School of law and Technology, New York law School, and several other  American legal and constitutional groups.  The American Department of Justice, anti-trust division, is conducting an investigation, though none of their conclusions have yet been made public.

• Many more writers and organizations have filed objections with the Court.  These may all be viewed at: http://news.justia.com/cases/featured/new-york/nysdce/1:2005cv08136/273913/

• All news reports are taken from Yahoo News re “Google Book”: http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news;_ylt=A0WTTkiiIJ1KuMIA.DTQtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTBlM21mM3ZrBHNlYwNwYWdpbmF0aW9u?p=google+book&c=&ei=UTF-8&pstart=1&b=31&fr=&pstart=1&b=41

• The most interesting legal blog is at the New York Law School: http://laboratorium.net/

• And last, though not least, you can always Google “Google Book”.