Up in Ontario

Debating Google Print

Over at the Kottke.org site a good discussion has sprung up around the lawsuit the Association of American Publishers (AMA) has filed against Google. The discussion centres on the complaint of one author, whose publisher is part of the AMA, who would like her booked to be included in Google Print - Book author to her publishing company: your lawsuit is not helping me or my book.

I feel like I have a horse in this race, since I also would like my book included in Google Print, so I added the following comment:

James says:
(obs)This may be the best comment thread I've ever read on a blog.(/obs)

From the FAQs of Google Print:

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How is my content protected?

Google hosts all material on our secure servers. We disable the print, cut, copy, and save functionality on all pages displaying book content, in order to protect your material. In addition, you can choose how much of your book a user will be able to view over a 30 day period, from 20% of your content up to 100%. Portions of your book will be available to all interested users, but those users wanting to browse additional pages must sign in with their Google Account to view the full pages. (They will still be restricted to the percentage of the book you choose to make available.) Google Print is a book marketing program, not an online library, and as such your entire book will not be made available online unless you expressly permit it."

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Q: Authors and publishers scrap tooth and nail to get their books serialized / excerpted in newspapers and magazines. So how is the same thing online different?

In my opinion, used book sales are far more a threat to author royalties than someone finding a book, deciding to highlight the whole thing and copy and paste it into another format on their desktop. Used book sales are almost 1-to-1 direct new book (read: royalties) lost since the price point is very similar.

To further muddy the copyright waters, almost all author copyrights are only sold to the publishers for a limited time, or until the book is ruled out of print. Then the copyright reverts to the author. So if they intend to respect copyrights, Google has to have agreements with the publisher (for the duration of the copyright assignment) and / or the author (if the copyright reverts), depending on the time and status of the copyright. Yeesh. No wonder Google is seeking foregiveness rather than asking permission.

And in case anyone is wondering, I want my book included in every online indexing mechanism that I've seen so far - Amazon, Google, etc. I think it drives interest and exposure and sales, not just for the searched-for book but for any additional material that I have written or will write. Being a writer is all about building and maintaining an audience. Anything that helps rocks.