Saturday, March 21, 2009

- Information on the Google Settlement

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the Author's Guild launched a lawsuit against Google. Below is some background and information that might impact you.

Authors need to be notified about the Google Litigation Settlement Agreement. In October 2008, AAP announced that a Settlement Agreement had been reached which, upon court approval, would resolve the two pending Google Book Search copyright infringement lawsuits – a class action suit brought against Google by the Authors Guild, and a separate suit brought against Google by five AAP members supported by AAP.

Because it resolves a class action lawsuit, the Settlement Agreement, if approved, will affect the rights of all book authors, book publishers and other persons – both inside and outside the United States – who own a U.S. copyright interest in books or certain other copyrighted works that Google, without permission, has scanned or may scan and display. It is important that such “class members” receive timely notice of the Settlement Agreement so they may exercise their rights and options, including whether to opt out of the settlement or, if not, claim their books.

With AAP, the Authors Guild and Google are coordinating notice efforts to ensure that their combined actions will satisfy the class action legal requirement to provide “the best notice practicable under the circumstances, including individual notice to all members who can be identified through reasonable effort.” This is an effort to provide direct notice of the Settlement Agreement to authors and direct them to the official settlement website at http://www.googlebooksettlement.com.

Please pass this on to anyone you feel might be impacted or interested.

Thanks for your help.

5 comments:

Laura Vivanco said...

Isabel, that hyperlink isn't working too well. It takes you to https://mymail.harlequin.ca/CookieAuth.dll?GetLogon?curl=Z2FowaZ2Fredir.aspxZ3FCZ3D2dcf2c9269474f649b399f25e577e48fZ26URLZ3DhttpZ253aZ252fZ252fwww.googlebooksettlement.comZ252f&reason=0&formdir=1 rather than http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/.

Anyway, thanks for the link. I'm going to head over and take a look.

Isabel Swift said...

Laura: thanks for alerting me--travelling & couldn't fix right away, but URL is correct & link should work now. Sorry!

Michelle Styles said...

Thanks for this, Isabel. I have gone ahead and followed the bouncing ball to register -- making sure I tick the correct box etc.

Anonymous said...

Some might be interested in a complimentary teleseminar with Attorney Joy Butler. “What the Google Book Settlement Means to Authors and Publishers” takes place

It takes place on Thursday, April 2, 2009 at 3:00 p.m. ET. /12:00 p.m. PT. For more details and to register, visit http://www.joybutler.com/seminarinfo.htm

Isabel Swift said...

Anonymous--thank you for the sharing that information.