European Union to scrutinize Google Books settlement; Congress may hold hearing
“The European Union said today that it would scrutinize Google’s settlement with authors and publishers and hold a hearing Sept. 7 to determine whether there would be any adverse impact on the European book market. “What’s currently planned is a fact-finding exercise by the [European] Commission — not an investigation — and we’re looking forward to taking part,” said Jennie Johnson, a Google spokeswoman. Under scrutiny will be Google’s agreement, reached last year with the Authors Guild and the American Association of Publishers, to make out-of-print books searchable online.”
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/07/european-union-to-scrutinize-google-books-settlement.html
University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Texas expand Google Books agreements
“In May, the University of Michigan announced an expanded agreement with Google that will take advantage of our settlement agreement to make millions of works from its library collection accessible to readers, researchers, and book lovers across the United States. Today, two more longstanding library partners–the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Texas–have also expanded their partnerships with Google. That means that if the agreement is approved by the court, anyone in the US will be able to find, preview and buy online access to books from these two libraries as well.”
http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2009/07/university-of-wisconsin-madison-and.html
Google Library Project Settlement: What It Means for Publishers
SPONSORED BY: Google, The Association of American Publishers, and Publishers Weekly
EVENT DATE: Wednesday, July 29, 2 pm ET Time – 60 minutes
“In a webinar first, the leaders involved with the crafting of the Google Library Project Settlement will share with the publishing industry the benefits of the agreement for publishers and authors. If approved by the Court in October, the agreement will create one of the most far-reaching intellectual, cultural, and commercial platforms for access to digital books for the reading public, while granting publishers unprecedented opportunities and protections. Presented in collaboration with Google, The Association of American Publishers, and Publishers Weekly, the web session is a must-attend event for publishers everywhere.”
https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=registration.jsp&eventid=156420&sessionid=1&key=7EF08275BD027B4FA08C48D022C8087D&sourcepage=register
Copyfraud: Poisoning the public domain
“The public domain is the greatest resource in human history: eventually all knowledge will become part of it. Its riches serve all mankind, but it faces a new threat. Vast libraries of public domain works are being plundered by claims of “copyright”. It’s called copyfraud – and we’ll discover how large corporations like Google, Yahoo, and Amazon have structured their businesses to assist it and profit from it.”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/26/copyfraud/
Give Your Input On the Google Book Search Settlement
“Publishers Weekly would like your input on the Google Book Search Settlement (from PW) and they are conducting a survey designed to gather a broad view of how the Settlement is being viewed.. . . . If you’re interested, take a few minutes to answer this brief, targeted questionnaire to help gauge industry opinion on whether the settlement should be approved, modified or rejected. Note that you do not have to have standing in the suit to participate in the survey. Please click on this link when you are ready to take the survey.”
http://lisnews.org/give_your_input_google_book_search_settlement
Source: The always excellent Intersect Alert.
The Intersect Alert is a newsletter of the Government Relations Committee, San Francisco Bay Region Chapter, Special Libraries Association
http://units.sla.org/chapter/csfo/csfo.html
