“The statutory minimum penalty for infringement is $750. That penalty can go up to $150,000 if a court finds that the infringement is willful.

“Do you believe that a court would find that Google willfully infringed the copyrights of all the books it’s scanned without permission?

“And, if you do, do you believe that you should settle with Google for just $60 and, in effect, sign a contract of 100-some-odd pages about what Google can do with your work in the future and what your (now limited) rights would be?

“Only you can decide what’s right for you. But, here’s the thing. Google wants its scanning operation to be an ongoing venture. So, there really isn’t any need to just let this happen if your head is spinning just trying to absorb all this. You can say no to Google and not lose anything except that 60 bucks in settlement money (assuming Google’s already scanned your book — if it hasn’t, you get nothing).”

- Anita Bartholomew

Just for example, Google can discount your book to however low a price they set, and pay you according to a percentage of the discounted price. If you do not want to lose copyright control of your book, you have to regularly pay an undisclosed amount to support the Settlement Registry/database. As no dollar income is guaranteed for your books, you could end up paying the Registry more than you make. Google can freely publish and distribute your book once it is declared out of print for only one year–a declaration made by Google, not by the author or publisher. Print-on-demand books can be declared “out of print” by undisclosed criteria.

I believe that Google’s goal is to dominate the publishing industry in one fell swoop. Although Google “allows” you to sell your book elsewhere even if they are also doing it, I think your chances of making money by selling it elsewhere could become very small.

I opted out of the Settlement by having my lawyer write a letter, which I sent by certified mail. I also filled out Google’s online form. I have tried repeatedly to find out whether my books were scanned. However, Google will not reveal this information to anyone who has opted out of the Settlement.

I have more than 70 books on the shelves, and most are available through Google in some fashion or form. Poor me. I mean really. I have to manually input every title and googles of information about each to get back rights to what’s already mine. Time consuming, to say the least. And as somebody who pays the bills with said books, I can ill afford such an expenditure.

Who’da thunk when Google emerged on the marketplace with its ‘clean and shiny’ promises, we’d one day crouch in fear at their blatant bullying tactics. Shameful, just plain shameful.

And shame on Authors Guild for not flexing their ‘we vow to protect you!’ muscles. No surprise here: I didn’t renew my membership.

Once again it’s the hard-working writer who’s left holding the stinking end of the stick: We do the work that makes everybody else rich, and here’s our ‘take away’.

I’d wish ‘em all nightmares of the scariest kind, but without consciences? They’ll sleep just fine…while we sit up nights, pecking titles and ISBNs and publisher info into their blasted form.

Arrggggh

I think the rest that follows is Google being ham-handed and the limitations of their software. Thus I don’t think that Google is of evil intent, nor do I argue against the harm their actions have caused, evil or not.

Consider: it took years for Google to get around to the idea of blocking people from their search engine who scrape your blog’s RSS feed and repost its content without attribution, which violates copyright sites AND creative-commons sites. And even now the process to do so is draconic, though that’s an improvement from nigh-impossible.

I actually don’t know if Google can wrap its mind/software around the idea of owned but non-private content.

It would be most helpful if you (or one of your readers) could supply an address at Google where I can send paper mail opting out of this theft of my property.

Thanks, Jerry