I am very sorry that I cannot find the correspondence that brought this to my attention, so please contact me again so I can credit you.

The Google/ Authors Guild case concerns Google’s attempt to scan all books and post them to the internet without first obtaining the permission of the copyright holder. While Google claims this act is their do-no-evil public service as internet uber-librarians, Google stood to earn millions of dollars from the exploitation of these works and had no intent to provide the creators or publishers of same with one penny from the use. While Google claims that only a small portion of any of the books is available for public perusal at any time, this is de facto copyright violation for commercial use.

When I have found these books scanned online via Google, huge sections of the books were available for use by the reader. Nifty for research purposes, but crappy of Google to take advantage of the content provider (author). Google’s empire made some 6 billion dollars last year alone.

(EDIT)While this article, which is written by someone who is clearly unhappy with the settlement, claims Google only made “snippets” of works available. I was able to read 20 pages of copyrighted texts at a time. Basically, entire chapters.

One commenter demanded to know had ANY of the annoyed authors ever made any money on their books after the advance?

Why, yes. I have. Thanks for asking. That’s how I have made almost every penny I have ever made on A Distant Soil.

The Authors Guild settlement will, supposedly, make a portion of the advertising funds raked in by Google payable to authors. How that is all going to work out remains a bit murky.

Further confusing the matter, children’s book illustrations are treated differently under the settlement terms than other book illustrations, which are excluded from the settlement.

This is the correspondence that recently came in the email, directed at all parties who registered to receive info about the claim and settlement outlined here.
(more…)

Google’s plans to scan books and make “snippets” of them available online has met with widespread opposition from authors and artists. The Authors Guild has spent many months attempting a settlement of the matter, and some well-known writers, including Ursula K LeGuin, left the organization rather than bow to copyleftists.

The French have successfully sued Google over the book scanning operation. China follows. (UPDATE: Latest info on tangentially related China/Google squabbles – hacked emails, viruses, yadda yadda.)

Everything I have read regarding the Google matter states all illustrations are to be excluded from the scans, except children’s book illustrations. “Commercially available books” are also said to be excluded. Google and its supporters repeatedly state the purpose of this database is to focus on orphaned works, but I have no trouble finding commercially available works in this database.

In Europe, Google is trying to avoid potential copyright infringement by scanning only books over 150 years old.

The current Google settlement language now excludes all foreign language books.

Today I was looking up Clive Barker books online, and I was surprised to see his graphic novels available on Google. Short stories were published in toto, a direct violation of the Google claim to publish only “snippets” and to avoid publishing illustrations, except from children’s books.

A Clive Barker graphic novel is no children’s book.

From my post one year ago:

“Inserts” include any text and other material, such as forewords, essays, poems, quotations, letters, song lyrics, children’s Book illustrations, sheet music, charts, and graphs, if independently protected by U.S. copyright, contained in a Book, a government work or a public domain book published on or before January 5, 2009 and, if U.S. works, registered (alone or as part of another work) with the U.S. Copyright Office. Inserts do not include pictorial content (except for children’s Book illustrations), or any public domain or government works.

Note that in the specific case of CHILDREN’S BOOKS, your illustrations are a part of the Google Settlement.

OK, define “Children’s Book Illustrations”.

Graphic novels included?

While the Google machine would have us believe that this attempt to preserve every book online for posterity is some sort of massive public service to preserve knowledge, it’s also a digital rights grab to boost their monopoly and their advertising revenues, forcing authors and artists to deal with a de facto publisher with whom they have no prior contract. The work is taken and the author, usually in no position to fight as an individual, is forced to settle.

And those authors now include cartoonists, even though the wording of the Google agreement is supposed to specifically exclude illustrations.

“By performing surgical nip and tuck, Google, the AAP [American Association of Publishers], and the AG [Authors Guild] are attempting to distract people from their continued efforts to establish a monopoly over digital content access and distribution; usurp Congress’s role in setting copyright policy; lock writers into their unsought registry, stripping them of their individual contract rights; put library budgets and patron privacy at risk; and establish a dangerous precedent by abusing the class action process.”

While the scans are pushed as an attempt to preserve out of print books, books of mine, currently in print, are on the Google search engine.

Some people are afraid that the settlement gives Google dominance over the book industry, but that is so far from true, since it is about out of print books. Google has zero market share in books right now, and we don’t see that them being able to offer online versions of out of print books will change that in any way.

I hardly see how Clive Barker’s works can be considered orphaned works, and how the public knowledge preserve is served by scanning in entire short stories from graphic novels, some of which are available as e-books and on bookshelves for sale right now. That this is all about “out of print books” is false on its face.

Just because Google doesn’t have a monopoly on print books, doesn’t mean it isn’t firmly establishing a monopoly on digital books.

Keep in mind the Google financial settlement also only covers books which are registered with the US Copyright Office.

I’ve received a complaint that there appears to be some malware in our ComicSpace network ads. (UPDATE: It does appear to be in the ads. The ads have been removed and will not be replaced until the problem is fixed.)

The report is:

I was going to do a screen cap of the warning pop up today, but when I
visited the site this morning, I did not get it again. Instead, I got a
warning on my security bar of the browser — with the following message –

****
This website wants to run the following add-on: ‘Remote Data Services Data
Control’ from ‘Microsoft Corporation.’ If you trust the website and the
add-on and want to allow it to run, click here.

This is not a Microsoft program. If you see it, do not click on it. Write me immediately at colleen@adistantsoil.com

I’ve reported this to ComicSpace already.

c

UPDATE: The culprit is indeed an open source ad software hack. Our open source ads are down and we await the green light from our tech people. For more info CLICK HERE.

Author Diana Kimpton’s response to THIS POST about the Google book scanning scheme, which supposedly excludes illustrations, except for children’s books.

The exception does NOT exclude graphic novel art. Read and heed.

I’m an author of children’s picture books that are illustrated by other people. I was so confused by what the notice about the Amended Settlement said about picture books and graphic novels that I asked Joanne Zack, class counsel for the author sub-class, for clarification. She says “The writer and illustrator of a children’s picture book are generally considered co-authors, and the copyright page often lists both the copyright owner of the text and the copyright owner of the illustrations. Under the Settlement, both the copyright owner of the text and the copyright owner of the illustrations in a children’s picture book can claim as owners of a copyright interest in the Book, with the right of either to contest the other’s claim if he or she can demonstrate that the other does not have a copyright interest in the Book (such as by producing an agreement stating that only one has the copyright interest).”

As the Amended Settlement never mentions picture books or defines the term, I assume this applies to all books where the text is provided by one person and the illustrations by another.

I hope this helps clarify things for you. Please feel free to pass it on to others who may need to know.

Personally I hate the Google Book Settlement. It grants Google far more than the much-talked about permission to display snippets – it lets them sell whole books.

Copyright laws give the same protection to all books, whether they are in print or not. There is no reason to allow Google to ignore those laws for books it deems to be Not Commercially Available.

If you don’t like the Settlement, you have two choices. Stay in and object to the court or opt out. Either way you need to act quickly. The deadline for both objections and opt-outs is 28 January.

Betwixt and between as always, my fellow comics people.

When it comes to handing out literary awards, comics artists are left in the cold. Not authors, we are told.

But when it comes to copyright squatting, that’s another matter.

Google is scanning entire books, posting entire stories.

For added snaps and giggles, a prime mover and shaker in the whole “information wants to be free” scheme, Jared Lanier, the fellow who popularized the term “virtual reality” has had a change of heart.

His new book, “You Are Not a Gadget,” is a manifesto against “hive thinking” and “digital Maoism,” by which he means the glorification of open-source software, free information and collective work at the expense of individual creativity.

Thank you very much to Diana Kimpton for allowing me to pass on her information.

I’ve seen virtually nothing about the Google Book scheme on comics industry related blogs.

However, all creators, including artists, need to be aware that their work is being scanned and published online, often in toto and without their permission by internet monolith Google. This amounts to a massive copyright squatting operation.

Google’s claim that they are attempting to create an information database of out of print and orphaned works is flatly false, as many works of contemporary authors which are still in print and commercially viable are available in the database.

This includes graphic novels, though the original wording of the Google settlement showed they intended to exempt illustrations from the database. However, children’s books were listed as an exemption. One wonders what public interest imperative of the “information wants to be free” sort is served by these children’s books.

Because comic book illustration is essential to narrative, graphic novels are included in the scanning scheme.

Ursula K LeGuin has formed a petition here which has been signed by more than 300 authors (it’s too late to sign, drat.)

She also has a blog so others may discuss opposition to the Google scheme.

Please circulate this info. To learn more and to opt out of the Google Settlement, GO HERE.

And you might want to switch to using another search engine. I’m going Yahoo.