Google Book Settlement

Via District Dispatch:

For Immediate Release

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Library Association (ALA), the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) sent a letter to William Cavanaugh, Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division yesterday, requesting the Division to advise the court presiding over the Google Book Settlement to supervise the implementation of the settlement closely, particularly the pricing of institutional subscriptions and the selection of the Book Rights Registry board members.

The letter, which was sent following a meeting the library groups had with the Antitrust Division, also recommended that the Division itself actively monitor the parties’ compliance with the settlement’s provisions.

In particular, the library groups urged the Division to ask the court to review pricing of institutional subscriptions whenever the Division concludes that the prices do not meet the economic objectives set forth in the settlement. In order to evaluate the price of an institutional subscription, the groups believe the Division should have access to all relevant price information from Google and the Registry.

The library associations assert that the Division should ask the court to review any refusal by the Registry to license copyrights in books on the same terms available to Google and to also review the selection process for the Registry Board to ensure the interests of all rightsholders are considered.

With an absence of competition for the proposed services, the settlement could compromise fundamental library values such as equity of access to information, patron privacy and intellectual freedom, according to the library associations who filed comments with the presiding judge on behalf of libraries and the public interest.

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Contacts: Jenni Terry, Press Officer, ALA Washington Office
(202) 628-8410, jterry@alawash.org

Prue Adler, ARL Associate Executive Director
(202) 296-2296, prue@arl.org

July 29, 2009 letter to DOJ

The ALA Washington Office is hosting a Breakout Session to discuss the proposed Google Book Search settlement on Saturday, July 11 from 10:30am – noon at McCormick Place West (MCP), Room W-193b (listed as the Washington Office Breakout Session II – Fair Use in the 21st Century: From Lawsuits to Legislation).

Representatives from Google and the library community will participate in a panel discussion moderated by Nancy Kranich, chair of the Committee on Legislation’s Copyright Subcommittee, to discuss the recent settlement and essentially what’s in it for libraries.

Panel participants include:

• Dan Clancy, Google
• Crosby Kemper III, CEO, Kansas City Public Library system
• Nancy Kranich, Chair, ALA Committee on Legislation Copyright Subcommittee
• Lee Van Orsdel, Dean of University Libraries, Grand Valley State University
• Kevin Smith, Scholarly Communications Officer, Duke University
• Patricia Steele, Dean of University Libraries, Indiana University

The program will include an overview of the proposed settlement recently reached among Google, the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild and the comments filed on behalf of the ALA, the Association of Academic and Research Libraries and the Association of Research Libraries with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York for the judge to consider in his ruling on the proposed settlement. The panelists will offer brief remarks and then take questions from the audience.

Additional information about the proposed Google Book Search settlement agreement, including the recent amended agreement between Google and the University of Michigan, is available at http://wo.ala.org/gbs/.