On January 22, the National Writers Union held its third and final briefing for writers still scratching their heads about the proposed Google Book Settlement. Those unable to attend in person can check out a recording of the event on NWU’s website here.
Just two days earlier, the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), the National Writers Union (NWU), and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) and the Internet Society’s New York Chapter (ISOC-NY) jointly sponsored a separate workshop to discuss the implications for writers. A recording of that event can be found here.
And last week, science fiction author Ursula Le Guin and 365 other authors have announced their intention to petition Judge Chin to ask that the U.S. “be exempted from the settlement”, and that “the principle of copyright, which is directly threatened by the settlement, be honored and upheld in the United States.”
At the Berkley event, noted legal expert, Berkley professor and GBS commentator Pamela Samuelson kicked off the presentation with a fair but succinct recap of the settlement to date and options available to the professional authors gathered in the room.
Beyond these binary choices, the crowd of professional communicators was (not surprisingly) flummoxed when they learned that, even if they did opt out of the settlement, Google would still likely scan their works. That the onus was on the author to file paperwork and chase after the infringer to remove their books from the database – or rather, move them into a “dark archive” – did not go over well.
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