National Writers Union Comes Out Against Google Settlement
By Jim Milliot -- Publishers Weekly, 8/14/2009 7:08:00 AM
After a recent meeting of its delegates held in Chicago, the National Writers Union has announced its opposition to the Google Book settlement with NWU president Larry Goldbetter calling the proposed agreement, “grossly unfair to writers.” Goldbetter said that “compared to the number and seriousness” of the copyright violations engaged in by Google in scanning copyrighted materials, the offer to pay writers between $60 and $300 for each book is “ridiculously low.” That only $45 million out of the $125 million in the settlement is allocated to pay writers, “seems way short of the amount needed to compensate authors of millions of books,” Goldbetter said.
The NWU also objects to the deal because it believes it is burdensome to require writers to opt out rather than having Google ask permission to use their material. Finally, the NWU said the settlement could interfere with the relationship between writers and their publishers. “The settlement makes assumptions about electronic rights that writers may or may not have assigned to publishers and it sets up an unfair binding arbitration process to resolve disputes between writers and publishers. These disputes must be arbitrated on a case-by-case basis. The settlement does not allow for writers, who were collectively targeted, to collectively negotiate to settle these disputes.”
Responding to the NWU, Authors Guild executive director Paul Aiken said the agreement is a win for authors and readers. “The settlement creates new markets for out-of-print books. Authors who control the rights to their out of print books will receive the lion's share of the revenues from the use of their works, while retaining complete control to terminate those uses at any time” Aiken said.
An NWU delegate, Thomas Gradel, said the organization, which is not a part of the lawsuit, wants to see the agreement scrapped and the parties renegotiate a new deal. The AAP, the Authors Guild and Google have said that if the settlement is not approved it is likely to lead to more litigation and millions of dollars in legal costs.
