Wednesday June 10th 2009, by Piers Strickland
The Register reports the contents of a speech made by Richard Sarnoff, the individual who apparently signed off the settlement agreement between Google Books (Google, Inc.) and the US Authors Guild and others.
The settlement has been subject to significant controversy, with commentators suspicious of Google’s respect of copyright laws given their treatment of copyright works on platforms such as YouTube.
Speaking at the World Copyright Summit, Mr Sarnoff was reported as making a couple of specific justifications for the copyright deal with Google:
- Books that are out of print are a “no-opoly”. The deal with Google will create a market for these titles for the first time. The Register quite rightly makes the point that competition will only really happen if the deal with Google is not exclusive and other players can get into the market. (See below for my comments on this point.)
- The rights owners need to engage and regularise this new market before it goes the way of file sharing in the music industry. In Sarnoff’s mind, making an early deal is the best way to make sure a new market develops in the proper way.
However, the terms of the settlement agreement with Google Inc, which is freely available on Google’s website (link), indicate (from a quick skim) that the settlement agreement is non-exclusive, so there does not appear to be anything preventing competing parties to Google Books from coming in and striking similar copyright settlements with these same claimants. Indeed, Google may possibly be performing a public service by paving the way in this respect.
Commercial settlements of copyright disputes are generally to be welcomed. They are often much preferable to clients, compared to the alternative, which is often very long and expensive copyright litigation proceedings with sometimes uncertain results. Alternative dispute resolution enables parties to agree much more commercially acceptable agreements than a Court has the power to give.
