At NYPL, No “Smackdown” This Time As Panel Pushes For Google Book Search Settlement
Andrew Albanese -- Publishers Weekly, 7/29/2009 7:48:00 AM
In what New York Public Library (NYPL) director David Ferriero called a return to the scene of the “Google smackdown,” the sold-out November 2005 event where the initial lawsuits over Google Book Search were first debated, panelists yesterday took questions from Ferriero and audience members and defended the pending Google Book Search Settlement.
The two-hour panel, "Expanding Access to Books: Implications of the Google Books Settlement Agreement,” featured David Drummond, senior v-p of corporate development & chief legal officer at Google; Richard Sarnoff, co-chairman, Bertelsmann, authors Jim Gleick and Peter Petre, and attorney and library legal advisor Jonathan Band, author of A Guide for the Perplexed: Libraries and the Google Library Project Settlement. The panel kicks off a week of events in New York as the settlement enters a critical final month before a September 4 deadline for rightsholders to opt-out or object to the deal.
Beginning the discussion, Drummond conceded the document was long and complex calling it a “great cure for insomnia,” but told Ferreiro he was not surprised by the contentious debate it has caused. “It took us three years to negotiate,” Drummond explained. “Each party had strong views and each of us had to make compromises.”
Ferriero, nevertheless, did his best to kick up some debate, raising a key sticking point for libraries: access issues, specifically the one free terminal provision, which the Urban Libraries Council has called inadequate. Ferriero and other librarians raised the specter of long lines forming to access Google Books, but the panelists stressed that if the initial terms of the deal were inadequate they could be changed. Bertelsmann’s Richard Sarnoff said that the key question now was not whether the settlement was perfect, but, rather, is a good ‘starting point.” That drew a sobering response from New York University librarian Nancy Kranich, who lamented the fact that people would have to be lined up before changes would be made, suggesting librarians’ deep frustration at their lack of position at the table as the settlement was negotiated over the past three years. Ferriero finally said his position was that the single terminal was simply insufficient. “How many do you want?” James Gleick quipped.
The discussion then took another potentially interesting twist, as Columbia University copyright expert Kenneth Crews attempted to re-frame the deal as a “revolution in publishing.” Crews suggested the deal could dramatically change the way books are accessed, bought, read, distributed and used. “If we are about to re-cast publishing, do we want to do so under these terms?” he asked. Petre, seizing the moment to rally for the deal said the quick answer was “yes,”—only to be interrupted by Drummond who said the answer was no—that is, no to Crews’ entire premise that the deal represented a revolution for books and publishing.
The panelists took turns lauding the deal's transformational impact, essentially casting the deal, and the creation of the Book Rights Registry, which they spoke of at times as if it were already up and running, as necessary. Sarnoff called it a matter “of horses and barns,” noting that Google has already digitized millions of books and given them to libraries. The options, he said, were to sue Google and libraries until every copy was off the Internet; to sue and possibly lose; or this settlement, which he said “was the best way forward” for both sides. One questioner, NYPL librarian Josh Greenberg, however, referenced the recent controversy over Amazon’s removal of digital copies of 1984 from Kindles, and questioned what the deal meant going forward for a world of “licensed” books. “The horse is out of the barn,” he noted, “but the horse has been lo-jacked.”
Jonathan Band, meanwhile, made perhaps the day’s most salient point: what better options exist? Band acknolwedged the deal's potential issues, but cited the recent healthcare debate as evidence that legislation, for eaxmple, was probably not the answer. He noted that legislation tends to reflect lobby power more than public will. “What makes the people who assume they would be losers under this deal assume they would do any better with legislation?” Band asked. He suggested that the best option is to convince the court to maintain vigorous authority over the deal’s implementation if it is approved.
Notably, there was little discussion about nuts and bolts issues, such as deadlines and how to register, or opt-out. And other key issues—such as pricing, potential monopoly power and dealing with orphan works—were given only rudimentary, vague treatment. Google’s Drummond said the company expected orphan works to comprise a very small number of works, a point disputed by some librarians, who argue the number could in fact be very high.
The panel wound down with a final discussion about privacy—the issue librarians really care about, noted NYU’s Kranich. No one on the stage had a comfortable answer, though Drummond stressed that privacy was core to Google, and that without protecting user privacy, Google wouldn’t have a business. Still, the notion of censorship in China, and government subpoenas loom as challenge for the digital age at large, not just for Google Book Search, the panelists noted. “The solution,” Gleick urged, “is to make privacy a public policy issue.”
