Replay of Google Book Teleseminar Is Now Available

A replay of my complimentary teleseminar, What the Google Book Settlement Means for Authors and Publishers, is now available.

Replay Information
To access the complimentary telephone replay, call (641) 715-3900. When prompted for the extension, enter 47422 followed by the pound sign (#). (If this is a long-distance call for you, you will pay to your long-distance carrier the fee normally charged for long-distance calls.)

Written Outline
Please download the written outline of the teleseminar before logging onto the replay. You can find the written outline at www.joybutler.com/googleoutline.pdf

QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS
If you have questions or comments after listening to the teleseminar, please post them in the comments section below. Although I cannot render any specific legal advice through my blog, I will respond to requests for clarification on the information presented in the teleseminar.

Comments

[Joy R. Butler]

Jill,

Thanks for listening to the teleseminar. I'm glad you found it helpful.

If Google classifies a book as in print, all payments (for cash settlement and commercial use) will be made by the Book Rights Registry to the publisher and flow to the author through the royalty statements of the publisher. If the author of an in-print book suspects she is not receiving the Settlement payments, she should most likely start her inquiry with her publisher.

The groups who initiated the class action lawsuit and negotiated the settlement with Google include the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers, McGraw-Hill Companies, Pearson Education, Inc., Penguin Group (USA) Inc., Simon & Schuster, and John Wiley & Sons.

Pages 28 -30 of the Final Notice provide several sources for additional information including: (i) the Settlement website at www.googlebooksettlement.com; (ii) the websites of the Authors Guild (www.authorsguild.org) and the Association of American Publishers (www.publishers.org); and (iii) a phone call to the Settlement Administrator (Toll-Free in the US 1.888.356.0248). The Final Notice also lists numbers for the Settlement Administrator that are toll free for callers in other countries.

[Jill]

Thank you for the excellent phone presentation. The information was very clear and well-organized.

Question #1: If the author does not opt out of the GBS, and his book was published by a university press, or if the author has an article in a book published by a university press: How will the author ensure that he gets the compensation provided by the settlement? Does the author have to contact his publisher? Does the author have to contact Google? Or contact some other organization? Thank you.

Question #2: How or where can we find out more directly from the group that is negotiating the settlement with Google?

[Joy R. Butler]

CLARIFICATION: Are POD-Only Books Classified as Commercially Available Under the Google Book Settlement?

In response to a teleseminar attendee’s comment about print on demand (POD), I said that the Google Book Settlement Agreement explicitly says that a book being available as a print-on-demand book will not by itself make Google classify the book as commercially available.

This language is in Section 4.7(a) of the Google Book Settlement Agreement which discusses new revenue models – one of which is POD – that Google may eventually offer. The exact language to which I referred reads “A Book’s availability through such POD program would not, in and of itself, result in the Book being classified as Commercially Available.”

I interpret the phrase “such POD program” to refer to POD books made available by Google under the terms of the Settlement Agreement. The Settlement Agreement appears to be silent on the question of whether a POD-only book (where the POD book is not provided through Google under the Settlement) would be classified as commercially available or not commercially available.