Commentary by K. Matthew Dames, executive editor.

Here’s what I fear will happen in the Google Print Library Project: the copyright controversies will never go to trial, and instead will be resolved by the parties in a confidential settlement agreement.

Of course, it is easy for me to sit here and pontificate about these issues going to trial and having a judge or jury render judgment: after all, I’m not the party being sued. And it is likely that Google’s legal counsel is urging the company to settle these issues out of court to avoid what I am seeking — a judgment on the merits. An adverse judgment could bring considerable financial risk to the company, diminish the vast reservoir of goodwill it still holds in the information community, sap executive resources, and risk bad publicity. (One could argue that Microsoft still is feeling the effects of its lengthy antitrust trial.) Any smart legal counsel would urge Google to settle this matter.

But is the smart move really the right move here?

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“First it was Google; now its Amazon.com that literary authors are kvetching about. An article in Thursday’s (September 29) Wall Street Journal discusses complaints authors have about the fact that Amazon.com offers books for sale at different prices. Authors are quoted as saying they think they are being deprived of royalties and they want their share!

“It is really no fun to write about copyright owners acting like Luddite pigs, and being in private practice it has a definite commercial downside. But, things are as they are, and I have always opted for honesty over craven brown-nosing and over self-imposed censorship.”

The Patry Copyright Blog. Literary Authors and Amazon.com. Sept. 30, 2005.

See also:

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg. The Growing Market For Slightly Used Books. WSJ Online. Sept. 30, 2005.

Hal R. Varian. Reading Between the Lines of Used Book Sales. The New York Times. July 28, 2005.

This interdisciplinary symposium, featuring Lawrence Lessig and Siva Vaidhyanathan, will explore the relationship between digital access to public cultural information and intellectual property constraints. In recent years, new legal limitations in the United States have affected public access to the materials held in a variety of different open digital library infrastructures, ranging from those of the Library of Congress to Kazaa. As new technological possibilities and laws governing their many uses emerge, it becomes critical to examine the relationship between digital innovation and legal regulation. This symposium seeks to promote a better understanding of the associated impacts of these changes on the local, national and international levels, both now and in the future.

The symposium is hosted by the MetaScholar Initiative of Emory University’s General Libraries. The symposium will be held from 9 AM - 5:30 PM on October 14, 2005, at Gambrell Hall on the Emory University Campus.

Emory University

Free Culture & the Digital Library

October 14, 2005

Emory University,

Gambrell Hall

1301 Clifton Road

Atlanta, GA 30322

USA