You have to wonder why, if the Google settlement is as good a deal as the Authors Guild keeps insisting it is, the honchos over there keep misleading their members when attempting to gain support.
Any settlement worth signing onto doesn’t need to be spun, finessed, or made to appear something it isn’t. If it’s worth signing onto, you simply list the actual benefits. You don’t pretend authors will get benefits that the settlement doesn’t, can’t, and won’t give them.
Although I was once a member of the Authors Guild, I am no longer. But friends do forward the emails they get. And I found the text of that email, inviting all authors and agents to a free teleconference this coming Thursday, on the AG website. I don’t have the time to fact-check everything, as it would require me to dig through the settlement agreement again, but here are some obvious whoppers I spotted that required no new research:
AG CLAIM: the only way to ensure that your book will not be completely removed from the database, and thus benefit from Google search, is not to opt-out.
AG CLAIM: The settlement offers a 63/37 split** in your favor … It’s a good deal. For comparison: Amazon buys e-books at a 50% discount from publishers. If you’re a self-published author, the split is 35/65 — in Amazon’s favor. Newspapers face a 30/70 split — again in Amazon’s favor — for electronic distribution of their content.
AB RESPONSE: Misleading. Here’s what the AG isn’t telling you about the above “good deal.” You’re not getting 63%. The Book Rights Registry takes delivery of that 63 percent, and takes its cut off the top. The BRR’s cut is unknown, and unspecified in the settlement. Estimates are that it can be anywhere from 20 percent to 50 percent of that 63 percent. Whatever is left after the BRR takes its cut goes to the publisher which then parcels out your share to you. What will that share be? Whatever your contract says it is.
Not exactly sounding like a 63 percent share any longer, is it?
AG CLAIM: Want to negotiate a different deal with Google? Turn off all display uses of your works and go for it. At any time.
AB RESPONSE: Huh? You can’t re-negotiate the terms through the settlement, of course. Those terms are set in stone if/when the settlement is approved. Unchangeable. Approved settlement = done deal.
So, I wondered what on earth the AG was up to with the above claim. As I keep saying, you certainly can get better terms through the Google Book Partners Program if for no other reason than you won’t have the BRR as a silent partner, skimming off the top. (Fun fact: 50 percent of the BRR will be appointed by the AG).
The Google Books Partner Program is the only current way to get a better deal from Google in its book search and scanning venture, to my knowledge. And you can be in both the program and the settlement. Here’s what the settlement FAQ says:
Can I participate in both the Partner Program and the settlement?
Yes. You can choose to participate in the settlement and its revenue models for one or more books even if you are already a participant in the Partner Program. The Partner Program agreement, if applicable to a particular book that is also included in the settlement, will govern Google’s treatment of that book to the extent the Partner Program offers the same uses or revenue models as the settlement and any prohibitions imposed by the Partner Program agreement on Google’s uses will apply.
So, the only thing I can figure, re its re-negotiation claim, is that the AG will suggest, during its free conference call on Thursday, that you opt in, tell Google not to display your book, then sign up for the Google Books Partner Program. But, if I’m reading the FAQ right, the catch is that, once you’re in the settlement, you’re stuck with the same terms, or as the FAQ says, “the same uses or revenue models as the settlement.”
If that’s the strategy AG plans to offer in its “go for it” re-negotiation recommendation, my brain hurts just thinking of the convoluted reasoning.
Why on earth would you give up your right to sue if Google oversteps, bring in a partner who’ll take an unknown percentage of the proceeds, sign a hundreds-pages long agreement you probably don’t understand … just to seek the better deal that you can only get outside the settlement?
Can’t wait to hear what they say next.
– Anita Bartholomew
Ask The Editor 
Thanks for this post. All good food for thought.
I have been pondering the Authors Guild memo too. As you say, it is remarkably misleading. The bit that struck me particularly is this sentence: “If you want to allow your book to be searchable in Google’s database, and you want to be fairly compensated for Google’s use of your work, and you want to retain complete control over whether, and how, your book is displayed or sold to users, you should remain in the settlement.”
I have posted some thoughts on this in my journal on Dreamwidth:
http://wolfinthewood.dreamwidth.org/4099.html
Comment by Gillian Spraggs — August 11, 2009 @ 8:16 pm |