It seems as though Google might have to bleed a little, over the scanning of copyrighted books. Publisher’s Weekly reports:
According to the Authors Guild motion for summary judgment, filed on July 27 (but made public in a redacted version on August 3), the Guild asks the court for summary judgment in its favor, and the minimum statutory damage award—$750 per infringement. With as many as four million of the estimated 20 million books scanned by Google thought to still be under U.S. copyright, the damages could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars should Google lose…
Win some lose some.
I doubt the Google honchos are over the moon about the likely pronouncement of the Courts, although they may draw a little comfort from the knuckle rapping looming on the horizon of some large publishers, as reported by Publisher’s Weekly.
The Department of Justice late Friday filed a motion with Judge Denise Cote asking her to approve the final judgment that the government reached with Hachette, Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins in the DoJ lawsuit that charged the three with colluding with Apple to fix e-book prices.
If the ruling goes according to the rumors on the grapevine, publishers will be prohibited from talking to one another about “sensitive information” that includes:
1. Its business plans or strategies.
2. Its past, present, or future wholesale or retail prices or pricing strategies for books.
sold in any format (e.g., print books, E-books, or audio books).
3. Any terms in its agreement(s) with any retailer of books Sold in any format.
4. Any terms in its agreement(s) with any author.
Ouch!
Regardless of the reasons adduced, fact is that The New Yorker has had to eat a little humble pie by publishing this week a never-before-seen F. Scott Fitzgerald short story. It seems that a knowledgeable editor initially rejected the submission back in 1936. You can read the full story at Newser.
And finally, I must close a bleak week with an irreplaceable loss. Gore Vidal, the American writer and enfant terrible of the letters, has died aged 86. His career spanned seven decades and included 25 novels, numerous collections of essays on literature and politics, a volume of short stories, five Broadway plays, dozens of television plays and film scripts, and even three mystery novels written under the pseudonym Edgar Box. You can find obituaries honoring the departed master anywhere, but there’s a particularly poignant article inThe Guardian.
It seems as though Google might have to bleed a little, over the scanning of copyrighted books. Publisher’s Weekly reports:
According to the Authors Guild motion for summary judgment, filed on July 27 (but made public in a redacted version on August 3), the Guild asks the court for summary judgment in its favor, and the minimum statutory damage award—$750 per infringement. With as many as four million of the estimated 20 million books scanned by Google thought to still be under U.S. copyright, the damages could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars should Google lose…
Win some lose some.
sold in any format (e.g., print books, E-books, or audio books).