Canadian writers among first to reject new Google deal
17.11.09 Philip Jones in The Bookseller

The Writers' Union of Canada has become the first significant group affected by the new Google Settlement to reject the revised deal.

According to the Canadian book trade magazine Quill & Quire, TWUC said the new deal did not adequately deal with issues surrounding orphan works, or issues surrounding library use.

The new deal, unveiled late Friday (13th November) now only includes books with a "shared legal heritage", including those published in the US, Australia, Canada and the UK. It is supported by the UK's Publishers Association, which said it would be "beneficial for all UK publishers who choose to remain in the settlement".

But Quill & Quire reports that the Association of Canadian Publishers and the Canadian Publishers’ Council are both taking a wait-and-see approach, preferring to consult with their members before taking any public position. The Writers’ Union of Canada, meanwhile, has decided not to endorse the amended settlement.

Toronto lawyer Grace Westcott told the magazine there was much in the amended settlement for Canadians to be pleased about, including the change to "commercial availability" and likelihood that the money Google has set aside to reimburse rightsholders would now go further, since 60% of titles digitised had now been excluded.

In Europe, the Federation of European Publishers, which had wanted European works excluded from the deal, issued a a non-committal statement, saying it needed "to analyse better the implications of this exclusion and the practical effects of the adopted definition, which includes also non-English books under certain conditions".

But, the FEP said the definition of commercial availability had been "significantly improved", adding that provisions over orphan works, particularly regarding tracking down rightsholders, appeared to signal a positive move.

Newswire Deutsche Press noted that Gottfried Honnefelder, chairman of the Boersenverein, the German booksellers' and publishers association, voiced concern that they had now been excluded, despite objecting to the original deal.

He predicted this would reinforce the global dominance of the English language. "The market that Google is supplying will still exist. We'll be outside it and will not listed," he is reported to have said.

Honnefelder called for Europeans to come up with enough money and ideas to rapidly create a computer system of their own, comparable to Google's planned digital public library for the world.

In New Zealand, while some authors wondered why they had been left out of the deal, Kathy Moore, chief executive of Copyright Licensing Ltd, welcomed the revised settlement agreement, saying it reinforced the exclusive rights of copyright owners to authorise use of their works.

She told Scoop: "Although some New Zealand publishers and authors were happy to be part of the Google Book Search, the revised agreement ensures that the right to digitise and provide access to a copyright work remains firmly with the creator. It also leaves it open for New Zealand authors and publishers to commercialise and exploit works that may no longer be available in print form by digitising them and making them available online."