I first became aware of  the New-York based National Writers’ Union (NWU) during our recent battle against the Google Book Settlement. Unlike our  Canadian unions — and the American Authors’ Guild, which brokered the Google deal — the NWU spoke up bitingly against the GBS, demonstrating an inspirational level of leadership on behalf of its members.

It is an activist union. In my view, this is what writers must have, at this time. NWU is vocal and specific about contract terms and has set high royalties for erights. They are not afraid to litigate. Their affiliation with the UAW (United Auto Workers) puts hard-line union teeth into their commitment. I contacted them to discuss how Canadian writers might participate with NWU.

Ten days ago, I  met in person with Larry Goldbetter, President, and Karen Ford, 3rd Vice President, who travelled to Canada to meet with me, writer David Bolt and Linda Page, a Canadian academic writer. We discussed how Canadian writers might join forces with NWU in order to fight together for a fair share of erights and related digital issues soon to confront all writers on this continent and elsewhere.

We agreed that digital publishing cannot be contained within geographic boundaries and will have vast implications wherever/however our writing is marketed to readers. We believe that writers can best fight for their creators’ share if they stand together, pool information and network with one another — certainly within North America. Possibly with Europe too, as we did, when we  joined with Gillian Spraggs in the U.K. in formally objecting to the Google Book Settlement.

In March, I resigned from The Writers’ Union of Canada. I do not believe it is sufficiently committed to fighting hard and smart on behalf of its members. This is a critical time for writers quickly to get savvy to the technology reshaping our livelihoods, and to put more voice into how we make our cultural contribution.

TWUC is currently searching for a new Executive Director. A steep learning curve lies ahead for whoever takes the wheel. Here’s hoping TWUC finds someone with both the passion and the steel to advance writers’ causes effectively. Meanwhile, there is no time to lose.

I am joining NWU. Its site is a model to me of what a writers’ union ought to be. At last, I thought, reading it. A real union. It is strong both in its advocacy and in its services, although it explains it is not a service organisation. Its posted Digital Bill of Rights and Campaign for Digital Rights is a passionate declaration of first principles. It will also look over contracts, patch you into a high-octane listserv of member writers across America and circulate a regular newsletter with very chewable contents.

Its membership is open to professional writers as well as to writers aspiring to break into the field. Its annual dues are scaled to earnings, starting at $120 (U.S) if your writing income is under $5000. It also offers a 6-month membership. There is no need to drop membership to other writers’ organisations in order to join NWU.

I urge you to visit their site and check it out for yourselves. I hope you will consider joining it. www.nwu.org.

United we stand.

Sarah Sheard

Her new paper (title below)  is online at: www.gillianspraggs.com/gbs/GBS_survival_aid.html

Here’s an excerpt from Gillian Spragg’s paper:

The Google Book Settlement: a survival aid for UK authors
Dec. 11th, 2009

I opted out in August. Having taken a good look at the agreement in its amended form, I have no intention of opting in again.

But every author’s situation and outlook is different (something to which the Google Book Settlement agreement, with its one-size-fits-all provisions, pays not the least attention).

This ’survival aid’ has been written not specifically to persuade authors to opt out but to help provide the information they will need in assessing the scope and detail of the settlement and weighing up their options. Which still remain open: for a short period only. The deadline for opting out is 28 January.

This paper is offered in good faith, after a lot of thought and study, but with no guarantee that it gets everything absolutely right. The settlement agreement is a complex and difficult document (some say, perhaps jokingly, that even the lawyers who drafted it don’t entirely understand it). My summary does, however, contain references to the relevant sections and subsections; if you are an author (or an agent), it should help you find your way around. It is not a substitute for reading the agreement itself, which is probably best studied at the Public Index, where the hyperlinks make it easier to navigate.

Although parts of it relate particularly to authors published in the UK, most of it relates just as much to authors published in Canada, Australia and the US.

If you have arrived here out of the blue: I am not a lawyer. Any author with valuable literary properties to safeguard would be sensible to consult one.

Why am I doing this? Because I have been disturbed by the inadequacy, and sometimes the demonstrable inaccuracy, of material that I have seen that has been circulated to or directed at authors. Because, in my experience, it has not been made at all easy for authors to acquire the full information they need to

a) weigh up their options

b) put their decisions properly into practice.

If you are thinking of opting out, you will find information on how to do this here.

If you have been planning to stay in and claim your books, there is quite a lot of information in this ’survival aid’ that it is likely you will find worth reading.

If you have claimed your books and now wish you had opted out: you can still change your mind and opt out, so long as you take action before 28 January.

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”.