The Google Book Settlement

The Google Book Settlement is a significant event in the development of digital copyright. The prospective terms of the settlement were first published in November 2008 and will come into effect on 11 June 2009 if finally approved by the US district court in which the preceding class action has been fought since its beginnings in 2004. Under the settlement, Google will become entitled to make digital copies of the book collections of a number of academic libraries in the USA and make these available on the Internet. The settlement relates to books in copyright, but distinguishes between those that are, and those that are not, „commercially available“ - loosely, between those in and out of print. For those in print, authors and publishers must actively agree to the switching-on of the Google facility; for those out of print, authors and publishers must notify Google that they do not wish their books to be available in this way. Individual rightholders can opt out of the settlement altogether to prevent any digitisation of their books or to require the destruction of copies already made. A carrot for rightholders to remain within the settlement´s embrace is that royalties will be payable at a rate of 63% on all Google revenues from the display of their work. These revenues will be earned by way of institutional subscriptions and consumer purchases of the right to access the full texts of books online, as well as by advertising on the site. This will be complemented by free public access in public libraries and non-profit colleges and universities in the USA. While indeed the entire agreement affects only activity in the USA, it affects foreign rightholders whose works are available in that country through the library collections being digitised, and who enjoy US copyright as a result of the Berne Convention. Since Google is pursuing similar arrangements in other jurisdictions around the world, it seems certain that this settlement will provide an international benchmark, and indeed delimit the room to manoeuvre by rightholders´ representatives in these countries.