More objections to the Google Settlement, this one from the U.S. Register of Copyrights:

In a blistering assessment of the deal, Peters told lawmakers that the settlement is in essence a compulsory license that would give Google the ability to engage in activities, such as text display and sale of downloads, that are “indisputable acts of copyright infringement.”

The other day I went Googling for information about the real life twins who inspired the movie Dead Ringers. I found a scanned book which had a lengthy article about the subject, and was able to read the article minus a few pages. I now have no incentive to get the book, because it is right there on Google, almost in its entirety. The author and publisher made no money from this use, and they were not asked their permission to put this on the web.

DC Comics has joined the publishers objecting to the Google settlement.

The opponents argue that the settlement would make Google the online gatekeeper for copies of out-of-print books. They also say the settlement gives Mountain View, California-based Google authority to sell works by authors who fail to notify the company of their objections.

While art and illustrations are supposed to be excluded from use, children’s book illustration is not. From a post on the subject I wrote in February:

OK, define “Children’s Book Illustrations”.

Graphic novels included?

And if so, who gets to decide which among those GN’s were intended for children?

Or, as the children’s book publisher who contacted me asked, are ALL GN’s going to be considered children’s book illustrations under this settlement? I tend to doubt that, but interesting that those outside our industry might be confused. That alone tells me problems may arise.

Also, notice the requirement that the works must be registered with the US Copyright Office to be included in the settlement. Interesting, no? So, what does that mean if your work is published but not yet registered? What if Google STILL scans and uploads your work? Registered before January 2009? After? When? What about when the original work has been registered while the derivative work has not?

Note also how this settlement affects foreign authors, in direct violation of the Berne Convention, also a problem with the Orphan Works Bill. I will dig up and repost my lengthy commentary on Orphan Works from my old blog as soon as I can. The bill has not passed, but supporters intend to reintroduce it again as soon as possible. The global financial crises put the subject on the back burner for awhile.

Academic writer Gail Hornstein, a professor of psychology at Holyoke, writes of the challenges of penning mainstream prose:

Popular writing, by definition, invites lots of different kinds of people to invest their time and money in your ideas, and your expression of them.

The contempt that academics have toward that kind of writing is, in essence, contempt for the ordinary reading public. We assume they’re unable to grasp the subtlety of our thought. We think that writing for a broad audience requires “dumbing down” our arguments. But that’s wrong. Popular audiences are tougher critics than fellow academics are.

The Irish income tax-exemption for artists may be repealed. Well, there goes my dream of a castle in Kilkenny.

Intended to help struggling artists, it has been criticised in the past because high-earning performers such as U2 were paying no tax on millions of euros worth of royalties.

In 2006, the level of earnings before tax was capped at 250,000 euros…Chairman of the Arts Council Pat Moylan warned that if the exemption was scrapped Ireland could lose a considerable number of artists, either to other countries or by discouraging young artists at the early stages of their careers.

“The artists’ exemption scheme is not a ‘rich man’s relief as has been portrayed in some quarters – Arts Council research has shown that over half the beneficiaries of the scheme have average earnings of less than half the minimum wage,” she said.

Scroll down one post for further objections to Google settlement.

NEW YORK — The Graphic Artists Guild joined several other visual arts rights holders’ trade groups and prominent individual photographers in filing objections to the $125 million class action settlement with Google Books for copyright infringement. The papers filed with the New York District Court last Wednesday seek to deny approval of the settlement, throw out an earlier complaint that excluded artists from settlement terms and request a new legal counsel and class representative be appointed to represent the interests of those filing the objections in the matter.

“After hearing the particulars of this settlement at the intellectual property conference where the agreement was announced,” Guild President John Schmelzer said, “I asked the Authors Guild’s attorney whose pocket the visual artists share would be coming out of — the writers’ and publishers’, or Google’s, and which of the parties would we have to sue to get that share. The answer appears to be that there was no consideration given to the visual components of the copied material in the settlement. All parties should be ashamed.”

The settlement provides $45 million for the establishment of a Book Rights Registry that will collect and pay revenues for the use of work of those included in the agreement. Classes not named in the settlement, such as artists and photographers, would not be eligible for this compensation mechanism.

For more information and the full release.