New Google Books terms & dates

A new amended Settlement Agreement has filed for the approval of the US Southern District Court of New York next week.

Significant amendments to the original settlement include:

1. Important Dates:
   • Extended deadline to claim payments for copying to date: 31 March 2011
   • Deadline for removing your book(s) from books.google.com: 9 March 2012 (but the removal deadline for libraries' copies remains 5 April 2011)
2. The membership of the "class" in the "class action" is amended. You are only affected if you your books are:
   1. published and registered with the United States Copyright Office before 5 January, 2009; or
   2. published in Canada, the United Kingdom, or Australia by that date.
3. A "fiduciary" - an independent supervisory body - will be established within the Authors' Rights Registry to represent the interests of right holders of unclaimed books and inserts.
4. Re-negotiation of revenue splits for commercially available books. The original 63/37 % split of revenue regime could be re-negotiated between Google and rightholders.
5. Apparently, the Google Book Search will be available only from US internet access points.

For more information, please visit: www.googlebooksettlement.com

For policies on removing your books from Google's database as a result of the amended class membership, visit: books.google.com/books-partner-options

© Yuk Lan Wong
International Federation of Journalists