Thursday, February 12, 2009

The Great Book Bank Robbery - The Devil is in the Detail

Today we visited the official Google Book Settlement site. It is very comprehensive with respect to the detailed settlement agreement, claims and registration procedures and the mass of information that is about to be collected in order to make the settlement work.

If anyone has let the settlement slip to date then the detail within the site will bring home the reality.

The FAQ pages alone cover some 71 questions covering issues such as:
I own rights in a photograph or illustration in a Book. Am I included in the Settlement?
What are "Inserts" as used in the Settlement and Notice ?
Does it matter if my Book is in-print or out-of-print?
What am I giving up if I stay in the Settlement?
Does the Registry provide a way for class members to know if their books have already been digitized in a US library?
How can a library become a Fully Participating or Cooperating Library?
Who can use the Research Corpus?
The organization to which the Notice was sent has gone out of business or was dissolved. What should I do?

We could not find the questions we have asked in the FAQ section but perhaps they are taken as fully understood:

We were somewhat surprised that the Opt out didn’t request an ISBN number (if known or available) and could work off the title and author details but again its Google so perhaps matching these is simple. It begged the question about part lists that have been purchased published under one publisher but now owned by another.

Creating an account appears simple and is clearly geared to the small organisation.

We suggest that most people pencil some serious time in their diaries before May 5th if for no other reason but to ensure that they understand the implications. We can see a neat line of consultants who will probably spring up to help.

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