For several years, Google - the search engine giant - has been scanning books in major libraries around the world, converting the scans to searchable text, and allowing users around the world the ability to scan the content of what is now millions of books for free. Great you might think. More power to them.
But not from the perspective of union writers. Yes, you heard me right. Union writers. Many of you may not be aware that writers of all kinds have had a union in the U.S. since 1981 - the National Writers Union - which has been part of the United Auto Workers since the early 1990s as Local 1981.
The NWU is the main American writers organizations that approaches the publishing industry as an industry and writers as working people. As such, it takes positions sometimes at variance with other writers organizations. The Google Books situation is precisely one of those issues.
As Google was merrily scanning books, it somehow thought that it was going to be able to end run the active copyrights that many of those books were still licensed under and display significant portions of those works on the web for all to see and use - selling ads on every such search page displayed - without giving writers a cut of any kind.
The Authors Guild - the largest U.S. book writers organization (but not a union) - was the first to use its significant money and legal power to force a settlement with Google in tandem with a number of large publishers. The settlement allows writers to opt their works out of Google Books, and provides small cash payments via a new Books Rights Registry for use of authors works in the Google Books system for those who chose not to opt out.
The problem with this settlement is that it stands in massive contravention to copyright protections in the U.S. and abroad - copyright being the only real protection that writers' works enjoy under existing law.
So, the NWU began a public attack on the settlement in August shortly after an action campaign was voted up by its bi-annual delegates assembly.
In a press release of Aug. 13, 2009, NWU President Larry Goldbetter, said, “The proposed settlement is grossly unfair to writers. It gives Google monopolistic control over access to many previously published copyrighted books and materials, and allows Google to collect and sell information about the reading habits of individuals. More importantly, the economic well-being of all writers will be greatly impacted by precedents set by any court-approved agreement. By scanning and digitally reproducing millions of copyrighted books and articles without permission by the writers, Google violated authors’ constitutionally protected rights. According to our understanding of the proposed settlement, writers whose copyrights were violated might receive a check for between $60 and $300 for each book and $15 per article. Compared to the number and seriousness of the violations, the amount being offered by Google to each writer is ridiculously low. Also, of the $125 million offered by Google, only $45 million is for writers. This seems way short of the amount needed to compensate authors of millions of books."
Goldbetter concluded, "Putting the onus on writers to contact Google is also grossly unfair. Google is essentially saying ‘we are going to steal your work and sell it under terms we dictate unless you tell us not to.’ A corporation, no matter how powerful, shouldn’t be able to profit from your work without first contacting you and obtaining your permission in writing. The NWU opposes the settlement because it interferes or might interfere with the relationship writers have with their publishers. The settlement makes assumptions about electronic rights that writers may or may not have assigned to publishers and it sets up an unfair binding arbitration process to resolve disputes between writers and publishers. These disputes must be arbitrated on a case-by-case basis. The settlement does not allow for writers, who were collectively targeted, to collectively negotiate to settle these disputes.”
The NWU has encouraged writers to file legal objections, has added its voice to much larger foes of the settlement - including countries like Germany - and has even contacted Al Gore (a senior Google advisor) to encourage him to pressure Google for a better deal for working writers.
The fight against the Google Books settlement is likely to drag on for years, but bears careful scrutiny by union techies everywhere. Because the trampling of workers rights by dot com corporations is hardly restricted to what Google is doing to writers, and because corporations ability to end-run copyright is part-and-parcel of corporate attempts to end-run workers rights in general.
If Google wins one of the big ways it will make money is by selling digital books for which is doesn't really control the rights to people all over the world - direct to mobile devices of all kinds. This has really cheesed off competitor Amazon this week because the book distribution system will work with all kinds of devices whereas Amazon's digital books can only be read on the proprietary Kindle reader - that Amazon owns. But while Google preaches their new systems as "liberation" for readers everywhere, they're really ensuring that writers get screwed by basing the whole book distribution system on huge numbers of works they don't own.
We'll keep an eye on the situation here at Communicate or Die, and encourage our viewers to do the same. But to keep up with all the latest, check out the National Writers Union website at www.nwu.org. Better yet, check it out every week or so because CorD's parent company Prometheus is just getting ready to trot out the NWU's shiny new website soon.
