The Right to Publish vs. The Right to Read

What is electronic reading devices? It offers required features for readers and provide enjoyable reading experience online. It is a place that allows publishers and authors to submit their books for inclusion in the electronic reading device.

Electronic reading devices like Amazon's Kindle are set to enter the mass market, Bookseller Barnes & Nobles is expected soon to launch its own e-reader, the top US bookstore chain launched its world's largest online bookstore in July, 2009 (Australian IT, 2009).

Unfortunately for Google, it was on the verge of settling a mammoth lawsuit with US publishers. A final court hearing took place on November 9 on the settlement, which would entail Google's helping to set up a book registry to track down and pay rights holders (Australian IT, 2009).

In the Google Books Settlement Agreement, it stated -

On November 13, 2009, the parties filed with the Court an Amended Settlement Agreement and a motion for preliminary approval of the amended settlement. The parties' motion also seeks Court approval of a Supplemental Notice, which, if approved, will be sent out in early December, 2009. If you're an author, publisher, or copyright holder, please visit the settlement administration site for information.

Image above shows that currently, Google is only able to show a few snippets of text for most of the in-copyright books they've scanned through their library project.

Google as a potential uploader are generating a lot of conflicting interest. For the benefits of the users, it uploaded books all with full text searches available and are now seen as a potential threat.

The Book Rights Registry will be required to search for copyright holders who have not yet come forward and to hold revenue on their behalf, under the revised settlement. Copyright holders can now choose to make their books available for free or allow reuse under Creative Commons, as well have the option to modify or remove restrictions placed on Google's display of their books, such as limits on the number of pages that users can view or print (Cnet News, 2009).

Although Google has offered a compensation settlement of $60 per book to authors, as well as 63% of the revenue online reading, Zhang, who met with executives from Google on 2 November, rejected the offer as unacceptable (Grimmelmann, 2009).

Right now, Google is trying hard to seek rights to scan and display pages out of books to create a modern day like the Library of Alexandria. However, some others thinks is not fair, when too much power lies in the hands of one company.

Reference:

Australian IT 2009, Book trade seeks a deal with Google
Accessed 10 November, 2009
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/book-trade-seeks-a-deal-with-google/story-e6frgamo-1225785656214

Google 2009, Google Books Settlement Agreement
Accessed 15 November, 2009
http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/

Cnet News 2009, Google Books settlement sets geographic, business limits,
Accessed 15 November, 2009
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10397787-93.html

The Laboratorium 2009, GBS: More Moot Criticism
Accessed 17 November, 2009
http://laboratorium.net/archive/2009/11/17/gbs_more_moot_criticism