Google is paying
$125 million to settle the lawsuit brought against it by publishers and authors over Google’s plans to digitize every book on the planet without first getting permission from the copyright holders.
The agreement, which is still subject to approval from the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, will see Google paying out $125m in total, of which a minimum of $45m will go to authors and publishers whose books were digitised without their approval. Google will also pay $34.5m to establish a book rights registry, and will cover legal fees.
Authors Guild president Roy Blount Jr said the discount made “good sense”. “As an author, well, we appreciate payment when people use our work,” he said. “It’s hard work writing a book, and even harder work getting paid for it.”
The agreement follows outrage from American publishers and authors three years ago, when they learnt of agreements struck by Google with certain American universities to scan books which were still in copyright, which would then be digitised and searchable online. American authors’ body the Authors Guild led the charge against the search engine, filing suit in September 2005 along with a number of authors.
Under the terms of the agreement, US readers will be able to preview up to 20% of most out-of-print books for free, with authors and rights holders of in-copyright but out of print works able to opt out of the arrangement if they choose.
For in-copyright books that are still in print, readers will be able to find the books, but will not be able to view any portion of it unless its publisher has signed up to Google’s partner programme.
This is a good outcome for everyone involved. Authors get paid for their work and consumers have wider access to books.
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Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog
John Lithgow talks to Harry Smith about his new children’s book, I Got Two Dogs. This is Lithgow’s eighth children’s book. Robert Neubecker is the book’s illustrator. Lithgow says this book skews younger than his previous children’s book. He sings part of the song from the book in the clip below. Lithgow is still busy in acting and theatre as well - he is currently working with Katie Holmes on Broadway.
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Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog
Here’s a video that show how paper engineer Sam Ita created part of his pop-up book 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea at his studio in Brooklyn, New York. The pop-up book looks amazing. (via Boing Boing)
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Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog
Warner Books © 2006, 436 pages
In his twelfth novel David Baldacci weaves a complex plot involving assassinations, scarce books, con artists, and high-stakes gambling. The story is told on three fronts. Roger Seagraves is an assassin, trained by the CIA, who’s no longer working with the best interests of the government in mind. Annabelle Conroy is a formidable con artist for whom sleight of hand and deception are second nature. And “Oliver Stone” is a former CIA guy turned leader of a group of eccentrics, the “Camel Club,” who act as an informal government watchdog group. The three threads of Baldacci’s story eventually come together. Annabelle, fresh off of an ungenerally lucrative “long con,” finds herself drawn into the Camel Club’s current case.
Baldacci’s story is a bit uneven, but mostly very entertaining. The hyper-competence of both Seagraves and Annabelle is fun to watch. The story is complex but told well, so that it’s not hard to follow once you’ve digested the large number of characters that are thrown into the mix at the beginning of the book. The Collectors is a sequel to Baldacci’s 2005 novel The Camel Club. I did not read the earlier book. (Indeed, I was not aware when I started it that The Collectors was a sequel, because the fact isn’t mentioned on the jacket copy of my edition.) I did feel, reading The Collectors, that the backgcircular and raison d’être of the Camel Club were insufficiently explained, though following the book’s storyline was not difficult for that reason. The other problem I had with the book is also related to the fact that The Collectors is part of series: while two of the three storylines in the book are concluded at the book’s end, it’s clear that there’s more to come for Annabelle and the victim of her long con. This isn’t a problem if you’re reading the books in a series, but if you read The Collectors as a stand-alone novel you may find yourself disappointed at the lack of closure.
Original post by Debra Hamel
