Judge's rejection of Google books settlement no heart-break for Kiwi publishers

A judge’s recent rejection of the Google Books settlement that would see Google make millions of books available online with an ‘opt-out’ clause for copyright owners won’t affect New Zealand publishers, President of the Publishers Association of New Zealand (PANZ), Adrian Keane said today.

The 2008 settlement is part of Google’s six-year battle to get the world’s books online, the Wall Street Journal reported, and was thrown out by Judge Denny Chin in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. 

The $125 million deal would allow Google to exploit books without the permission of copyright owners, the decision concluded.  The settlement was between Google, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers and can be re-submitted if revised. 

The judge made a suggestion for revision: copyright owners should be given the right to opt into the settlement, something Google’s lawyers have said wouldn’t be viable, the Journal said. 

Mr Keane said the rejection of Google’s settlement would not have “a hell of a lot of an impact” on New Zealand publishers, because when the settlement was first amended, the resulting agreement excluded New Zealand, involving instead the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and the United States.

Mr Keane said there was no particular reason for this exclusion and that it was probably a geographical and population-size based decision to progress the settlement as quickly as they could. 

“If they grabbed the four biggest English speaking markets in the UK, Canada, Australia and the US, then that was kind of a neat way they could proceed with it…You’d have to ask Google.”

He said there had been a lot of different opinions about the original settlement in New Zealand and that the Society of Authors had been very much against it due to what they felt was a breach of fundamental copyright. 

Mr Keane said the opt out/opt in decision was at the heart of the latest court decision and that an opt in option was more democratic. 

He said there was a “huge” amount of communication about the settlement but that opting out was generally considered negatively because owners did not get a choice. 

“I guess the judge’s feelings about that is that if you are a copyright holder you should not have to do anything, it’s your copyright, some one can’t just say ‘Well you’re now part of this and the only way you’re not going to be a part of it is if you say so’.”  

He said there was no hard-and-fast-rule for who usually owned copyright.

Mr Keane said while there was no immediate impact due to the court decision, the entire settlement issue had prompted the local industry to consider its digital future, which was a good thing and that PANZ was “completely and utterly” behind digitilizing books.

“It’s a very important part of the transformation of our industry.”