Friday, February 20, 2009

authors guild v. google

The newsletter of the UK Authors Licensing and Collecting Society has arrived, with all the details of the "Google Settlement" agreed between the US Authors Guild and Google regarding all those zillions of books that Google have had scanned to make them available and searchable online. Looks like we authors stand to earn some money for our out of print books, which is a nice surprise. So far I can see nothing wrong with the deal, and would certainly be grateful for my old books to be made more widely accessible, but would be interested in other authors' opinions. All details should be online at the settlement website.

I know from the German press that VG Wort, the German equivalent of the ALCS, is planning to collectively withdraw German books from the settlement. While every author can individually opt out of the settlement, I'm not sure yet whether I can opt out of that withdrawal for my German books.

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