*Canadian Writers Against the Google settlement

*Note:  I’ve tried my best to limit this email to interested people.
If you have received this inadvertently or would like your address off the list, please let me know.

Sorry if you have received this already.  I’ve been having trouble with AOL Mail BCC.

As you all know by now, on March 22nd Judge Denny Chin, in New York City, rejected the Google Book Settlement.

That’s right.  We won.  Our petition and objection brief achieved their purpose.

To put it more accurately, you won, because it took a collection of individuals to do this.

You were outraged by the GBS and wanted it destroyed. And the judge agreed with you.  You should be very, very proud of yourself.

You’ve already read the objection brief.  Here is the decision:http://thepublicindex.org/docs/amended_settlement/opinion.pdf

What happens now?  There may be an appeal, but that is an unknown at this point.  I’ll keep you posted.  Meanwhile, all the deadlines are gone, the confusion, the incomprehensible language, the requirement to “opt out”, all of it.  Erased.

One unsettling fact still remains, however.  Google continues to digitize books at an incredible rate. They can no longer sell this material (and take 37% of the profit as well as put advertising beside your words), but they are, as Judge Chin puts it, “engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission.”

The U.S. National Writers Union has issued a press release:  “Because writers’ copyright infringement claims against Google have yet to be resolved, the NWU calls on Google to stop scanning without permission – now.”  It also “… looks forward to working with our litigation partners, the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, to assure that the rights of writers to their works are fully and fairly protected.”

Right now, I am in talks with several Canadian organizations, as well as the NWU, in the hopes of building a strong cross-border alliance that speaks with one voice.  More on that as it develops.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

David Bolt