New York judge rules against Google books settlement | Books | guardian.co.uk
We are in the age of the ebook, but the process of creating a world library along the model Google planned has suffered a setback. With 15 million books already scanned, Google will have to work some more to make its books project a reality. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Novelist Nick Harkaway, author of The Gone-Away World, has some clear thoughts about Judge Denny Chin’s ruling against the Google books settlement–as reported in the Guardian.

Harkaway observed: “The hunger of outfits like Google for bulk buys and cheap deals is insatiable, and the government seems to be leaning towards the idea of making the market more favourable to them. My nervousness is that the government will go ahead with a bunch of ludicrous ‘reforms’ to make the market more convenient for the new media companies.” He added: “Yes, we need a culture where copyright permission can be made ready for release in five minutes, and rights-holders need to prepare for that. But you need to avoid these attempts to legitimise collective licensing and the aggressive acquisition of rights in bulk, which essentially legitimises taking rights away from people.”

On the difficult subject of orphaned works, Wired (UK) reports

But when it comes to millions of so-called orphaned works, Google’s proposal goes too far, Chin said. Google would be able to scan them, sell them and place up to 20 percent of a title’s words in search results — all without the rights holder’s consent. Chin said Congress, not he, should “establish a mechanism for exploiting unclaimed books.”

This is perhaps the most difficult category of books to come to terms with. As much as we might think it sensible for them to be accessible, Judge Chin’s caution also makes sense.

It does seem certain that Google has the resources to go back to the drawing board with this project and we can only hope that a better books project will emerge in the end.