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Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Is Google being evil?

Twenty-four hours after first reading Lynn Chu’s op-ed in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal on the proposed Google book settlement, it’s still on my mind. I have not been following this issue as closely as I should be, and no doubt there are counter-arguments. But her analysis certainly disturbed me. Here are some key passages:

There is nothing more individual in the world than a book, an author, a publisher, and the value of a contract. The aging baby boomers now flacking the settlement don’t seem to understand that PDF scanning (how Google and everyone else digitizes books) isn’t rocket science; it’s cheap and easy. Books will be digitized without Google. But the Google settlement sets in amber today’s overhyped role of the Internet, ruled by that great and magnificent Oz — Google.

And:

Under the settlement, every rights-owner in America is supposed to hand over all their private contract data, on every edition of every work they ever wrote — and every excerpt permission ever granted to others — at the peril of losing the money Google will be making on their backs. This is a massive burden on everyone in the book industry, making us all, in effect, Google’s data-entry slaves. Indeed, in most cases such information about every permission ever granted is unlocatable. It opens a Pandora’s box of disputes and mistaken claims about who actually owns what.

 And:

We already have a good system. It’s called the system of private property and free contract, designed for dispersed, autonomous individuals — not command-and-control centers. The U.S. Constitution grants authors small monopolies in their own copyrights. Author market power is talent-based and individual, not collective. This class action seeks to wipe all this out — just for Google.

Ms. Chu is a literary agent at Writers Representatives, and she clearly believes Google is being evil with this proposed settlement of its dispute with the Authors Guild and other plaintiffs in their class-action suit against the company. I hope that the 385 pages of the settlement document don’t scare others in the publishing world away from understanding it before the May 9 deadline for deciding whether to opt-in or opt-out.

Here’s a link to the WSJ article (though, as a subscriber, I’m not sure whether or not it’s behind a firewall).

Ms. Chu continues her argument, advising writers to do nothing, here.  

 

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About Judith H. Dobrzynski

Now an independent journalist, I've worked as a reporter in the culture and business sections of The New York Times, and been the editor of the Sunday business section and deputy business editor there as well as a senior editor of Business Week and the managing editor of CNBC, the cable TV

About Real Clear Arts

This blog is about culture in America as seen through my lens, which is informed and colored by years of reporting not only on the arts and humanities, but also on business, philanthropy, science, government and other subjects. I may break news, but more likely I will comment, provide

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