RE: Darnton on the Google settlement

["David Prosser" <david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk>]

Certainly, I am being flippant.  But I do find the idea of a 
cut-off rather depressing.  It sweeps into a fenced-off area of 
control works that may be in the public domain, or where the 
ownership can only be determined with great difficulty if at all, 
or where if they knew the rights holders would be only to happy 
to allow their works to be fully digitised.  So we all lose out 
as we wait for the clock to tick down and for the deadline to 
creep forward year-by-year.

But the opt-out option is much more interesting - I'm not going 
to argue about the legalities of it all as they have been 
rehashed over and over and also because I don't pretend to be an 
expert in the matter.  But the concept!  The concept that we 
include these works, but take them out if the rights holder 
objects, that's much more exciting.  It brings more works into 
the project, it respects the rights of the owners, and it allows 
readers like me to find more titles that deal with topics of 
interest.

If I can come down to earth with a sincere question: what can a 
publisher do with a title in their list where they don't know who 
owns the rights?

David


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Sally Morris (Morris
Associates)
Sent: 04 February 2009 23:16
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: Darnton on the Google settlement

David:  If I may say so, that's a rather flippant comment, coming
from a former publisher!

Google only has to determine the date of publication, which is
after all written in the prelims of the book - it's my
understanding that they are using a standard cutoff date - to
determine whether or not the title is out of copyright

The publisher, on the other hand, has to determine who currently
holds the copyright:  has it reverted to the author;  if the
author has died, who is the current holder...

Sally Morris
Email: sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of David Prosser
Sent: 02 February 2009 23:01
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: Darnton on the Google settlement

I find it amusing that Google is expected to determine the
copyright status of millions of titles before they can be
digitised, but it is apparently unreasonable to expect publishers
to determine the copyright status of the titles they publish
themselves!

David Prosser
SPARC