Re: French deal may break deadlock between Google and publishers

["Mary Murrell" <murrell@berkeley.edu>]

I haven't seen the agreement, but the press coverage (in the New 
York Times and the Bookseller) indicated that Google would give 
copies to Hachette (for non-commercial uses) and to the 
Bibliotheque Nationale de France.

It's not clear where the books will come from -- US libraries? 
Hachette itself? -- or how many Google has *already* scanned.

I also thought that publishers (US ones, at least) already had 
the option of submitting a list of ISBNs to Google that would 
then be excluded from their scanning, but perhaps I was mistaken.

Mary Murrell


> If I'm reading this announcement correctly, what this arrangement
> does is what the Amended Google Settlement also does, as thus
> summarized from an official document about the AS:
>
>>As Google first announced in September 2009, any book retailer
>>-- Amazon, Barnes & Noble, local bookstores, or other retailers
>>-- will be able to sell consumers online access to the
>>out-of-print books covered by the settlement, including
>>unclaimed books. Rightsholders will still receive 63% of the
>>revenue, while retailers will keep the majority of the remaining
>>37%. This provision has been explicitly written into the revised
>>agreement as a Google obligation.
>
> I do not believe that this means Google will give its digital 
> files to Hachette for Hachette to use in any way it pleases. 
> That would indeed be a step beyond anything Google has agreed 
> to do in the past.
>
> When Penn State Press approached Michigan about granting more 
> use rights for the library's Google book files of Press books 
> if Michigan would give the Press a copy of the files for its 
> use, Michigan agreed but Google nixed the deal. Google has been 
> very protective of its files, and I can't imagine that it 
> really has backed away from that position.
>
> Does anyone on this list know what the arrangement with 
> Hachette indeed entails in this respect?
>
> Sandy Thatcher
>
>
>>Sandy,
>>
>>I am no expert on all the ins and outs of Google's various 
>>programs, but I believe that the Hachette arrangement has a new 
>>feature: Hachette will receive digital copies of their books, 
>>which they can exploit in any way they choose.  In effect, G is 
>>serving as a conversion house, among other things.
>>
>>Joe Esposito
>>
>>On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 3:02 PM, Sandy Thatcher
>><sandy.thatcher@alumni.princeton.edu> wrote:
>>
>>>  Unless I'm missing something, I don't see what's new about this
>>>  kind of arrangement. Way back in 2005 U.S. publishers began
>>>  entering into agreements with Google in its Publisher program
>>>  to have Google digitize books. The suit arose out of an
>>>  unsanctioned arrangement Google struck up with libraries and
>>>  Google's challenge to the traditional practice of publishers
>>>  opting in to any such arrangement. The deal with Hachette looks
>>>  very much like the deals U.S. publishers have been making with
>>>  Google for five years now. This may be a "fresh start" for
>>>  Hachette, but it isn't for U.S. publishers.
>>>
>>>  Sandy Thatcher
>>>
>>>>"A new agreement between Hachette Livre and Google could offer a
>>>>way forward in the ongoing dispute between authors, publishers
>>>>and the search engine over the digitising of out-of-print books."
>>>>
>>>>Full text, from the Guardian: http://bit.ly/gkyWd9
>>>>
>>>>Bernie Sloan