Re: Google settlement rejected

["James J. O'Donnell" <jod@georgetown.edu>]

Shall we have a listmembers' pool of predictions about how long 
it will take the U.S. Congress to clear its mind of dealing with 
true crises like incandscent bulbs and getting coddled NPR 
reporters out of LIbya and to focus on getting orphan works 
sorted out and done? They've had numerous chances.  Any Johnny 
Mathis fans among us?  Side bets also should be welcome on 
whether what Congress does ends up being more or less 
corporate-friendly than what was in the settlement.  I'm not a 
particular fan of the deceased settlement, but I also don't think 
that spending several years not solving the problem adds as much 
value as some might think.

Jim O'Donnell
Georgetown

On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 10:24 PM, 
<jean.claude.guedon@umontreal.ca> wrote:

> Jim is right about the problem, but it must be added that the
> Google solution was not the right one. The solution for orphan
> works should come from a legislative effort, and not from a
> side-effect of a global agreement that did not even include all
> the stakeholders (e.g. the readers, the educators, etc.). I
> believe Pam Samuelson and Bernard Lang have written important
> pieces about orphan works.
>
> Jean-Claude Guedon
>
>
> Le mardi 22 mars 2011 a 23:06 -0400, James J. O'Donnell a ecrit:
>
>> Judge Chin in a 48 page ruling has rejected the Google
>> settlement. Among many news reports, all mostly the same, see:
>>
>>
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704461304576216923562033348.html
>>
>> The main point seems to be that he signals that if the settlement
>> were "opt-in" for authors rather than "opt-out", he could find it
>> acceptable.  The challenge of that is that "orphan works" don't
>> have authors available to do the opting in for them and so would
>> be effectively excluded.
>>
>> Jim O'Donnell
>> Georgetown
>>
>