Really interesting stuff, Kassia & co.! As always.

Mike — as you know (I hope!), I’ve written extensively on the subject of rights reversion etc, and will likely be doing so again if the gods favor quiet writing time this weekend. From my perspective, owning all your rights is the most important thing an author can do. Unlike some others, I am of the firm belief that authors should license their work for specific periods of time, with options on both sides to re-up at the end of that period.

This gives authors, particularly, the opportunity to react to this ever-changing market, and, frankly, forces the publishers to be more competitive when it comes to distributing books. This will require a sea change in how deals are negotiated, but blaming this and that on Google is missing the key point (I’m not saying *you* are, btw). Except for those instances where work is licensed specifically by the author to Google, all monies continue to flow through the publisher.

I am hot on this topic this week because Random House, not for the first time, is messing with contractual royalties for ebooks, this time going far lower than even my cynical mind can imagine. On the flip side, you have major authors cutting deals with Rosetta Stone because RS offers a better deal.

Oops, there’s a good portion of the post written already!

At least I’m not alone in seeing the terrible implications for writers:

http://mikecane2008.wordpress.com/2008/10/31/the-great-book-bank-robbery/

even the harvard library director
– harvard! — has spoken out
about the problems with this deal:

> “The settlement provides
> no assurance that the
> prices charged for access
> will be reasonable,”
> he added, “especially since
> the subscription services
> will have no real competitors.”

yes! push back on a monopoly.

-bowerbird

i meant:
> keep their _hands_ inside our wallets!

-bowerbird

yes, that’s right. there is no charge at all.
that’s what “free” means to most people…

just like it’s “free” to drive down the road.
even though it costs money to make roads.

we know a toll-road is different — entirely.
what google has done is put up a toll-road.

> but you pay to make the book
> available to check out.

and this is exactly what i’m talking about:
tax-dollars should pay for cyberlibraries,
just like they pay for physical libraries,
the main difference being that the price
for cyberlibraries should reflect the _real_
price for e-books — i.e., be a _fair_ price —
and the variable price for e-books (as all
digital goods) is one that approaches zero.

if google’s price is one that approaches zero
as the number of units rise, i will be happy.
but i see no indication that that is the case.

which means that the authors/publishers
will be getting a steady income-stream that
vastly surpasses the investment they made,
which means _somebody_ is getting screwed,
and that “somebody” happens to be the public.

> You are paying or your parents are paying
> or someone you know is paying.

my parents are both dead. perhaps you are
thinking i must be a wet-behind-the-ears
youngster with all of my “radical” thinking.
but you would be wrong. i’m well over 40…

> That’s how the (public) library system works.
> I, for one, happily pay these taxes because
> the good that comes from it is worth the price.

and the same would be true of our cyberlibrary.

indeed, since the costs would be _much_ lower,
while the benefits would be roughly the same
(or perhaps even much greater, given the wider
distribution of e-books, and the multiplicative
power of our many-to-many connected tubes),
the investment would prove to be _much_ wiser.

so, will we let that route be thrown into the crapper,
so that google can collect money from the public to
make itself even more wealthy, and prop up the old
business models of the past that the publishers love?

if we do, we’ll be making a _huge_ mistake. huge.

> I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that
> you don’t know anything about royalty accounting.

it’s always a good debate strategy to presume that
your opponent doesn’t grok what he’s talking about.
it makes for a very respectful conversation, yes, sir.

> You want all these books to be free — to you —
> without restrictions.

not just to me. to _everyone_. i couldn’t care less.
the products of the publishing industry long ceased
to have much appeal to me… celebrity tell-alls? no.
diet books? no. cookbooks? no. get-rich quick? no.
bibles? no. some clones of last year’s best-seller? no.
romance novels? no. stephen king? no. harry p? no.

society is now a morass of self-centered greedy brats.
the corporations molded society into their own image.
(and no, i’m not “angry” about that. “it is what it is.”)

the thing is, i want free cyberlibraries precisely because
they happen to be an excellent investment in our future.

but the greedy brats want free books because… why not?

and they’ll get their free books, because digital products
are amazingly easy to copy. so books _will_ be pirated.
they are already being pirated. now. any book you want.
including those by pynchon. and rowling. heck, _sartre_.
any book you want. i can find it for you online. in a week.

> That was never the intent of this settlement. That was,
> frankly, never the intent of the Google Book Search program.

oh, good thing i never let google’s business cloud my vision,
which was formulated decades before there _was_ a google.

> You don’t want to pay? That’s your prerogative,
> but it doesn’t mean that people who own this content
> have to give you their property for free.

you are making a _fundamental_misunderstanding_
by assuming this is because _i_ just “don’t want to pay”.

i wouldn’t read the crap put out by the publishing industry
even if it _was_ free. i wouldn’t read it if they _paid_ me.

ever since i got this internet thingee, multi-way communication
is _much_ more compelling to me than the corporate soapbox.
i’m not interested in their brainwashing, thank you very mush.

and let me tell you, the days of corporate publishers are over.
it will take them some time to go through the death throes,
and they’ll keep their megaphones forever so as to blast us,
but the time where they controlled the conversation is gone.

because once the corporations can’t make any money off of it,
they will get out of publishing like rats deserting a sinking ship.

so whether i “don’t want to pay” is totally beside the question…

the question here is whether we are going to let greedy capitalists
prop up their old business models by taking away an incredible gift
that has been bestowed on us — the ability to make infinite copies…

if they are allowed to impose scarcity on us artificially, just so
they can continue to keep their money inside our wallets, then
we deserve the crap they are forcing down our throats…

-bowerbird

further, i don’t think i am
expressing myself “roughly”,
but then again, i’m not sure
exactly what that means…

-bowerbird

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you don’t know anything about royalty accounting. Fun stuff. I’ve certainly done enough of it in my day. As noted in my post above, it appears that the music industry never really passed on settlements to musicians. Big surprise, but I’m not going to impute the same intentions to the settlement until there’s evidence of ill-intent.

The fact that the agreement clearly specifies pots of money for different parties indicates that there’s at least intent to compensate authors differently than publishers. It is now the job of these authors and their agents to make sure this aspect of the agreement is carried out.

You want all these books to be free — to you — without restrictions. That was never the intent of this settlement. That was, frankly, never the intent of the Google Book Search program. Just because some of these books have exhausted their commercial value from a mass market perspective, it being only recently that print-on-demand technology has made it possible for very small lot runs to be financially viable, it does not mean that they have lost all commercial value to the rights owner. While I have issues with the copyright law extensions, I do not quibble with the right of that copyright owner to make money from his or her product.

You don’t want to pay? That’s your prerogative, but it doesn’t mean that people who own this content have to give you their property for free. The settlement between content creators and Google is partially a financial settlement, designed to, as best as possible, compensate the widest group of people for the right to exploit their work. Pure and simple.

Is it perfect and is everyone happy? No. Could authors be bigger winners? Absolutely. Could they be bigger losers? Oh yes.