Happy Public Domain Day 2023, the end of copyright for 1927 works

January 1st is Public Domain Day, my favorite day of the year. Today marks the end of copyright for books, movies, and music first published in the U.S. in 1927. Now that these works are in the public domain, everyone is free to use, reprint, quote, remix, and adapt them without permission or payment.

For many years, only works published in the U.S. through 1922 were in the public domain because of retroactive copyright extensions like the 1998 Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which extended copyright terms of works published before 1978 from 75 to 95 years and works created on or after that date to the life of the author plus 70 years. Without that extension, these 1927 works would have entered the public domain twenty years ago, in 2003. It wasn’t until January 1, 2019 that copyright protection finally ended for 1923 works, and every New Year’s Day the public domain gains another year’s worth of treasures.

Some notable 1927 literary works now in the public domain include: Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes (containing the last two original Sherlock Holmes stories), Ernest Hemingway’s Men Without Women, William Faulkner’s Mosquitoes, A. A. Milne’s Now We Are Six, Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop, Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey, and Sinclair Lewis’ Elmer Gantry, to name just a few.

The full texts of the 1927 books that have been scanned by the Internet Archive, Hathi Trust, Google Books, and other digital archives should soon be publicly available on their websites.

I highly recommend that you visit the Public Domain Day 2023 website created by Jennifer Jenkins from Duke Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain to read important news and information about copyright and the public domain and to explore some of the 1927 works that you can now use as you like. But as Jenkins notes, the celebration is bittersweet because of what could have been:

“This site celebrates works from 1927 that are in the public domain after a 95-year copyright term. However, under the laws that were in effect until 1978, thousands of works from 1966 would be entering the public domain this year. Under current copyright terms we will have to wait until 2062. In fact, since copyright used to come in renewable terms of 28 years, and 85% of authors did not renew, 85% of the works from 1994 might be entering the public domain! Imagine what the great libraries of the world—or just internet hobbyists—could do: digitizing those holdings, making them available for education and research, for pleasure and for creative reuse.”

Public Domain Day 2022, the end of copyright for 1926 works

Another New Year, another Public Domain Day! January 1, 2022 marks the end of copyright for works first published in the U.S. in 1926. For many years, only works published in the U.S. through 1922 were in the public domain because of retroactive copyright term extensions. Most works published between 1923 and 1977 currently have copyright protection for 95 years, so it wasn’t until the first day of 2019 that 1923 works could finally enter the public domain, and each new year brings more treasures.

Here are a few of the notable 1926 works that entered the public domain today:

• A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh
• Ernest Hemingway’s novels The Sun Also Rises and The Torrents of Spring
• F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story collection All the Sad Young Men
• Langston Hughes’ first book of poetry, The Weary Blues
• Dorothy Parker’s first book of poetry, Enough Rope
• William Faulkner’s first novel, Soldiers’ Pay
• T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom
• Edna Ferber’s Show Boat
• Hart Crane’s first book of poetry, White Buildings
• Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
• S.S. Van Dine’s The Benson Murder Case, the first Philo Vance mystery novel
• Felix Salten’s Bambi
• Carl Sandburg’s Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years
• Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Land of Mist
• Arthur Rackham’s illustrations for Shakespeare’s The Tempest

The full texts of the 1926 books that have been scanned by the Internet Archive, Hathi Trust, Google Books, and other digital archives should soon be publicly available on their websites.

Visit the Public Domain Day 2022 website from Duke Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain to explore some of the books, music, and films that are now free to use, reprint, quote, remix, and adapt without permission or payment. Of special note, all pre-1923 sound recordings will finally enter the public domain today as well. The site is a great source of information on copyright and the public domain— don’t miss the legal updates and Jennifer Jenkins’ analysis of the complicated tangle of competing rights when a book like Winnie-the-Pooh enters the public domain but companies like Disney have their own copyrights and trademarks based on the work.

Enjoy these photographs of some of the 1926 first editions now in the public domain, courtesy of Bauman Rare Books:

Happy Public Domain Day 2021, the end of copyright for 1925 works!

Today is Public Domain Day 2021, the end of copyright for works first published in the U.S. in 1925. Yes, this means that F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby has finally entered the public domain (nearly 96 years after its first publication), though you’ll still have to wait another 9 years for Tender is the Night.

Other works entering the public domain in the U.S. today include Ernest Hemingway’s In Our Time, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, Sinclair Lewis’s Arrowsmith, and Alain Locke’s important Harlem Renaissance anthology The New Negro, as well as 25 Dorothy Parker poems. The full texts of the 1925 books that have been scanned by the Internet Archive, Hathi Trust, Google Books, and other digital archives will soon be made publicly available on their websites.

Visit the Public Domain Day 2021 website from Duke Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain to explore some of the books, music, and films that are now free to use, reprint, quote, remix, and adapt without permission or payment. For background and further reading about copyright and the public domain, see my earlier posts on Public Domain Day 2019 and The Great Gatsby.

I’ll leave you with a few of Maxfield Parrish’s beautiful illustrations from the 1925 first edition of The Knave of Hearts, now in the public domain. (Photographs courtesy of Bauman Rare Books. Click on an image to make it larger.)

 

 

 

 

Happy Public Domain Day 2019!

Today is Public Domain Day 2019, which means (finally!) the end of copyright for works first published in the U.S. in 1923. You are now free to use, reprint, quote, remix, or create your own derivative works from 1923 works without permission from or payment to the copyright holders, who would be the descendants or estates of the long-dead creators.

Specific works from a wide range of authors entered the public domain today, including Robert Frost, Winston Churchill, Agatha Christie, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Kahlil Gibran, Aldous Huxley, D.H. Lawrence, Edith Wharton, P.G. Wodehouse, Ernest Hemingway, Sigmund Freud, Willa Cather, Joseph Conrad, H.G. Wells, Virginia Woolf, George Bernard Shaw, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Rudyard Kipling, e.e. cummings, E.M. Forster, Zane Grey, Arthur Conan Doyle, and many others.

The full texts of the 1923 books that have already been scanned by the Internet Archive, Hathi Trust, and Google Books will be made publicly available on their websites, and I’m sure many more 1923 works will soon be scanned by these and other institutions. And every January 1st the public domain will gain another year’s treasures, which will be especially important to authors, scholars, artists, and researchers.

For decades, only works published in the U.S. through 1922 have been in the public domain, as Congress repeatedly and retroactively extended the length of copyright terms. Most works published between 1923 and 1977 currently have copyright protection for 95 years, so 1923 works enter the public domain on the first day of 2019, 1924 works on the first day of 2020, and so on. (So F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, first published in 1925, won’t enter the public domain for another two years.)  However, books published today don’t enter the public domain until 70 years after the death of the author. It’s all ridiculously complicated, so see this chart of Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States from Cornell University for details and exceptions.

Here are some recommended links for more information and lists of some of the 1923 works that entered the public domain today:

• The Public Domain Day 2019 website from Duke Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain and their spreadsheet of over a thousand 1923 items they’ve researched, including literary works, musical works, artistic works, movies, and more.
• My friend Glenn Fleishman’s article in Smithsonian magazine.
• My friend Cory Doctorow’s blog post for BoingBoing.
• Alexandra Alter’s article for the New York Times.
• John Mark Ockerbloom’s Public Domain Day advent calendar.
• The Hathi Trust’s collection of over 40,000 scanned 1923 works which will change to full-text access when they enter the public domain.

The Great Gatsby was published 88 years ago today but won’t enter the public domain until 2021

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was published 88 years ago today, on April 10, 1925.

However, this work won’t enter the public domain in the U.S. until January 1, 2021. That’s because the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act extended the copyright term to 95 years after publication for books published between 1923 and 1962 (if published with a copyright notice and if the copyright was renewed). Copyright law is ridiculously complicated, so right now the only works you can be sure are in the public domain in the U.S. are those published before 1923. So This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and Damned are in the public domain, but The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night are not. This 2011 Duke University Libraries post summarizes the Fitzgerald copyright situation.

Books published today enter the public domain 70 years after the death of the author. Here are some links for more information about our crazy and complicated copyright system:

• Duke Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain has a Public Domain Day website which explains why nothing will enter the public domain in the U.S. until 2019.
• Cornell University’s detailed chart of Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States.
• The American Library Association’s Digital Copyright Slider.
• Public Domain Sherpa’s U.S. copyright term calculator.
• Europeana’s public domain calculator for Europe.
• An excellent post on the public domain by Glenn Fleishman in The Economist’s Babbage blog.

Update, January 1, 2019: My new blog post about Public Domain Day 2019— works first published in the U.S. in 1923 are now free of copyright, but we still have to wait another two years for The Great Gatsby to enter the public domain.

New update, January 1, 2021: Gatsby and other 1925 works are now in the public domain! See my blog post about Public Domain Day 2021.

Breaking news: Judge Chin rejects the Google Books Settlement

James Grimmelmann has just reported that Judge Denny Chin has rejected the Google Books Settlement. (For background, see my previous posts on the Google Books case or The Public Index website.) The full opinion is here (PDF). I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but below are a couple of excerpts from the beginning and the end of the opinion:

The question presented is whether the ASA [Amended Settlement Agreement] is fair, adequate, and reasonable. I conclude that it is not.

While the digitization of books and the creation of a universal digital library would benefit many, the ASA would simply go too far. It would permit this class action– which was brought against defendant Google Inc. to challenge its scanning of books and display of “snippets” for on-line searching– to implement a forward-looking business arrangement that would grant Google significant rights to exploit entire books, without permission of the copyright owners. Indeed, the ASA would give Google a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission, while releasing claims well beyond those presented in the case.

Accordingly, and for the reasons more fully discussed below, the motion for final approval of the ASA is denied….

In the end, I conclude that the ASA is not fair, adequate, and reasonable. As the United States and other objectors have noted, many of the concerns raised in the objections would be ameliorated if the ASA were converted from an “opt-out” settlement to an “opt-in” settlement…. I urge the parties to consider revising the ASA accordingly.

I recommend checking Grimmelmann’s blog (The Laboratorium) for his analysis and information about the case.

Update: Here’s the link to Grimmelmann’s new post, “Inside Judge Chin’s Opinion.” More links at The Public Index Blog and TeleRead. Publishers Weekly has an interesting article about what could happen next and the obstacles in the way of revising the settlement.

A final post on Cooks Source (updated)

Over the weekend, the Daily Hampshire Gazette posted an article by Dan Crowley containing an interview with Judith Griggs about the Cook Source copyright infringement kerfuffle. (See my two previous posts for background.)

I found the article rather sad, as she still doesn’t seem to get it. She admits printing Monica’s article without permission was wrong but continues to make vague excuses about overwork (she and her daughter run the magazine alone) and her “shortcomings when it comes to understanding copyright law.” She clearly doesn’t understand that what sent everyone into a frenzy was the tone and content of her truly extraordinary e-mail to Monica. It was just so wrong, arrogant, and unintentionally funny that it became an instant meme.

And now she has replaced her previous unsigned statement on the Cooks Source website with a new one, full of anger and self-pity (and lots of spelling and punctuation errors):

Its sad really. The problem is that I have been so overworked and stretched that when this woman — Monica — contacted me, I was on deadline and traveling at the rate of 200 mile a day for that week (over 900 in total for that week), which I actually told her, along with a few other “nice” things, which she hasnt written about. I was stupid to even answer her that night, her email to me was antagonistic and just plain rude and I was exhausted. But I got suckered in and responded. She doesnt say that she was rude, she doesnt say that I agreed (and did) to pay her. It was my plan to contact her after deadline and have a good discussion about it….

I should add that this email exchange took place the day before she wrote her article for the world. After she (likely) received my email, she called the home office phone at 10PM, I didnt answer that late, was in bed as I was traveling again the next day (left at 7AM the next morning) to Connecticut, and didnt get back to her. This is not an uncommon practice with anyone, to not respond to a phone call for a day or two, it happens to me from other businesses, all the time. I came home that day from being in Connecticut to find hundreds of phone messages and emails telling me I sucked and was a dirtbag… and much MUCH worse.

I really wish she had given me a chance to respond to her before blasting me. She really never gave me a chance….

This is how it happened:
When putting together a magazine, a publishing firm usually has a staff of many, a stable of writers and proofreaders. Cooks Source doesnt, it is just us two…and believe me we would if we could use more help. Consequently I do much, have a few stalwart writers who love to write (for free) and a number of publishers and book agents who send me A LOT of books, recipes, press releases, etc — I recieved one even today. In the past I have also assisted budding writers with their writing skills and given them a portfolio piece they can get jobs with, from magazines and newspapers that will pay them. In short, we do a lot of good, sell a lot of books for authors, and help a lot of people. But one night when working yet another 12 hour day late into the night, I was short one article… Instead of picking up one of the multitude of books sent to me and typing it, I got lazy and went to the www and “found” something. Bleary-eyed I didnt notice it was copy written and reordered some of it. I did keep the author’s name on it rather than outright “stealing” it, and it was my intention to contact the author, but I simply forgot, between proofreading, deliveries, exhaustion….

The bad news is that this is probably the final straw for Cooks Source. We have never been a great money-maker even with all the good we do for businesses. Having a black mark wont help…and now, our black mark will become our shroud. Winters are bleak in Western New England, and as such they are bleak for Cooks Source as well. This will end us….

Thank you to all our readers, thanks to all our advertisers and writers… and to everyone who has been supportive and who has been a part of Cooks Source. To one writer in particular, Monica Gaudio, I wish you had given me a chance.

You can read the whole thing here.

What a shameful way for Judith Griggs to exit the stage.

Update 1: Here’s Monica’s response.

Update 2 (11/17/10, morning): In a new article in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Dan Crowley reports that Judith Griggs is officially shutting down Cooks Source magazine:

“Cooks Source is gone,” Judith D. Griggs said Tuesday, just days after personally distributing her last issue of the free magazine in western New England. “It’s done.”… In a phone interview Tuesday, Griggs said she will leave her statement up a few more days before eliminating the Cooks Source website altogether.

Update 3 (11/17/10, afternoon): The Cooks Source website is gone. Here’s the Google cache of Judith Griggs’ final statement.

Monica Gaudio has posted copies (with dates) of all of her e-mails to Judith Griggs, but she can’t publish the full text of the e-mails she received without permission.

But honestly, Cooks Source, your apology needs work

The Cooks Source website has been replaced with an unsigned statement (in serious need of editing) which eventually gets around to apologizing for the unauthorized publication of Monica Gaudio’s article in a very passive “mistakes were made” way. Without explicitly acknowledging that their entire business model appeared to be based on reprinting articles from food blogs and websites without permission or payment (see Ed Champion’s post identifying other articles as well as this spreadsheet listing the original sources of dozens of articles reprinted in Cooks Source), they do promise to change their ways.

Much of the statement is actually about the attacks on the Cooks Source Facebook page, the fake Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, and the harassment of advertisers. (The situation clearly escalated out of control and did lead to cyber-bullying and trolling. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for Judith Griggs because of her copyright infringement and her shocking and arrogant e-mail to Monica, but the rampaging internet hordes went too far with the personal attacks and the harassment of the advertisers.)

Here’s what the statement says about the misuse of Monica’s article and future changes:

Last month an article, “American as Apple Pie — Isn’t,” was placed in error in Cooks Source, without the approval of the writer, Monica Gaudio. We sincerely wish to apologize to her for this error, it was an oversight of a small, overworked staff. We have made a donation at her request, to her chosen institution, the Columbia School of Journalism. In addition, a donation to the Western New England Food Bank, is being made in her name. It should be noted that Monica was given a clear credit for using her article within the publication, and has been paid in the way that she has requested to be paid.

This issue has made certain changes here at Cooks Source. Starting with this month, we will now list all sources. Also we now request that all the articles and informational pieces will have been made with written consent of the writers, the book publishers and/or their agents or distributors, chefs and business owners. All submission authors and chefs and cooks will have emailed, and/or signed a release form for this material to Cooks Source and as such will have approved its final inclusion. Email submissions are considered consent, with a verbal/written follow-up….

However: Cooks Source can not vouch for all the writers we have used in the past, and in the future can only check to a certain extent.

That’s nice– blame unnamed writers for the magazine’s repeated copyright infringement. I don’t think that will get you off the hook when the lawyers from Food Network and Martha Stewart come knocking.

You can read the whole statement here.

John Scalzi gave the apology a D+. What do you think?

If you somehow missed the original kerfuffle, see my previous blog post, “No, the web is not ‘public domain.'”

Update: I love this very funny “slightly corrected” version of the Cooks Source statement on the KitchenMage blog.

No, the web is not “public domain”

If you haven’t been following the mind-boggling copyright infringement kerfuffle that’s currently setting the web on fire, here’s a quick recap. A copyrighted article was copied off a website and published in a print magazine named Cooks Source without the knowledge or consent (or payment) of the author, Monica Gaudio. When Monica found out, she contacted the magazine’s editor, Judith Griggs:

After the first couple of emails, the editor of Cooks Source asked me what I wanted — I responded that I wanted an apology on Facebook, a printed apology in the magazine and $130 donation (which turns out to be about $0.10 per word of the original article) to be given to the Columbia School of Journalism.What I got instead was this (I am just quoting a piece of it here:)

“Yes Monica, I have been doing this for 3 decades, having been an editor at The Voice, Housitonic Home and Connecticut Woman Magazine. I do know about copyright laws. It was “my bad” indeed, and, as the magazine is put together in long sessions, tired eyes and minds somethings forget to do these things.

But honestly Monica, the web is considered “public domain” and you should be happy we just didn’t “lift” your whole article and put someone else’s name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. If you took offence and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally. Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me! I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me… ALWAYS for free!”

That’s the very definition of chutzpah.

This is a case of copyright infringement, not plagiarism. It would have been plagiarism if the magazine had published the article without crediting the original author. The magazine made unauthorized use of material protected by copyright. This could be quickly resolved if both parties reach a settlement, or else the magazine could theoretically be sued and face financial penalties, though that is unlikely, as the legal fees would be prohibitive. However, I suspect the magazine is not long for this world, as on the magazine’s Facebook page advertisers are pulling out and people are identifying other examples of copyright infringement. If they’ve copied material from major food magazines or websites with deep pockets and lawyers, they’re toast.

Some related links:

• Monica Gaudio’s original post and her follow-up post.
• Nick Mamatas’ post, which first spread the story.
• John Scalzi’s post and Neil Gaiman’s tweet, which sent the story viral.
• The magazine’s Facebook page, where people are expressing their displeasure.
• The controversy has already spawned two funny fake Twitter accounts:  @cookssource and @crookssource.

Update 1: A post on “How Publishing Really Works” has more information and links, and it points out a new Facebook page for reporting the original sources of other articles published in the magazine, which apparently include the websites of Food Network, Paula Deen, and Martha Stewart, among other big names.

Update 2: BoingBoing, Gawker, and The Consumerist have now picked up the story, and the Twitter storm continues to grow.

The Google Book Settlement hearing is over, and now we wait

The Google Book Settlement fairness hearing was held yesterday (February 18th). Here are some recaps of what happened:

• MobyLives
• Publishers Weekly
• Library Journal: Part 1 (about the morning speakers) and Part 2 (about the afternoon speakers)

Now it’s up to Judge Denny Chin to decide the fate of the Google Book Settlement.

For background on the GBS controversy, see my previous posts on the subject, which contain lots of links and other information.

That’s enough blogging for today– spring has come very early to Seattle, so I’m going outside to play in the sunshine.

Update, 2/20/10:  Today James Grimmelmann posted his long, detailed, and very interesting first-person report on the fairness hearing, in which he summarizes the arguments of each speaker and the questions Judge Chin asked in response.  Grimmelmann notes, “Yesterday’s fairness hearing was fascinating. Very little happened to substantively change where the case is going, but as a snapshot of the players and their positions, it was very revealing.”

Google Book Deal 2.0

Late last night the revised Google Book settlement was filed with the court.

So what’s changed? From the New York Times:

The revisions to the settlement primarily address the handling of so-called orphan works, the millions of books whose rights holders are unknown or cannot be found. The changes call for the appointment of an independent fiduciary, or trustee, who will be solely responsible for decisions regarding orphan works.

The trustee, with Congressional approval, can grant licenses to other companies who also want to sell these books, and will oversee the pool of unclaimed funds that they generate. If the money goes unclaimed for 10 years, according to the revised settlement, it will go to philanthropy and to an effort to locate rights holders. In the original settlement, unclaimed funds reverted to known rights holders after five years.

The changes also restrict the Google catalog to books published in the United States, Britain, Australia or Canada. That move is intended to resolve objections from the French and German governments, which complained that the settlement did not abide by copyright law in those countries.

The revised settlement could make it easier for other companies to compete with Google in offering their own digitized versions of older library books because it drops a provision that was widely interpreted as ensuring that no other company could get a better deal with authors and publishers than the one Google had struck.

Google’s blog post about the revised settlement has links to their summary of the changes and FAQ.

James Grimmelman has a detailed analysis of the revised settlement and notes: “My instant reaction is that it makes a number of meaningful, if modest, improvements, but leaves unaddressed the central issue that led me to worry about the settlement in the first place.”

The Open Book Alliance is, of course, unhappy with the revised settlement:

Open Book Alliance co-chair Peter Brantley said, “Our initial review of the new proposal tells us that Google and its partners are performing a sleight of hand; fundamentally, this settlement remains a set-piece designed to serve the private commercial interests of Google and its partners. None of the proposed changes appear to address the fundamental flaws illuminated by the Department of Justice and other critics that impact public interest. By performing surgical nip and tuck, Google, the AAP, and the AG are attempting to distract people from their continued efforts to establish a monopoly over digital content access and distribution; usurp Congress’s role in setting copyright policy; lock writers into their unsought registry, stripping them of their individual contract rights; put library budgets and patron privacy at risk; and establish a dangerous precedent by abusing the class action process.”

Resource Shelf has an excellent  link roundup and press review here.

Judge Denny Chin will soon announce the timeline for the notice period, objection hearing, and final fairness hearing.

I’m sure the debate will rage across the blogosphere in the days and weeks to come.

Update, 11/15: James Grimmelman has posted the proposed GBS schedule on his Laboratorium blog:

* Notice begins: Monday, December 14, 2009.

* Opt-out/objection/amicus deadline: Thursday, January 28, 2010 (45 days later).

* DOJ files its response: Thursday, February 4, 2010 (7 days later).

* Plaintiffs move for final approval: Thursday, February 11, 2010 (7 days later).

* Final fairness hearing: Thursday, February 18, 2010 (7 days later).

Link salad

Sorry for the lack of blogging, but I’ve been unusually busy of late. Here’s a round-up of some of the links I’ve collected over the past week or two.

Sergey Brin’s op-ed in the New York Times defending the Google Books settlement, “A Library to Last Forever”:

Today, if you want to access a typical out-of-print book, you have only one choice — fly to one of a handful of leading libraries in the country and hope to find it in the stacks.

I laughed out loud when I read this. As far as I know, all libraries have online catalogues so you can check their holdings remotely, and many have interlibrary loan programs. And has this man never heard of a used bookstore? You can even search for millions of out-of-print books on sites like Bookfinder, buy them online and have them mailed to your home.

Here’s Pamela Samuelson’s response in The Huffington Post, “Google Books in Not a Library.”

And Chris Thompson’s response in Slate, “Sergey Brin Blows Smoke Up Your Ass.”

And the Open Book Alliance’s response.

Chris Thompson’s East Bay Express article “The Case Against Google Books,” about Peter Brantley, Pamela Samuelson, and Geoff Nunberg and their opposition to the Google Books settlement.

Lewis Hyde’s New York Times Book Review essay on orphan works: “There are millions of them out there, and they are gumming up the world of publishing…. [When] Carnegie Mellon University tried to digitize a collection of out-of-print books, one of every five turned out to be orphaned. When Cornell tried to post a collection of agricultural monographs online, half were orphans. The United States Holocaust Museum owns millions of pages of archival documents that it can neither publish nor digitize.”

Sam Roberts’ New York Times article about the Leon Levy Foundation’s grants to institutions to “preserve and digitize their archival collections and to make them available online to scholars and to the public.” This could uncover many historical treasures that have been locked away in uncatalogued archives.

Michael Ruane’s Washington Post article, “WWII GI Returns Books Taken from Germany Six Decades Ago,” with “anti-Nazi librarians hiding their books.”

Motoko Rich’s New York Times article about library ebooks, in which “some publishers worry that the convenience of borrowing books electronically could ultimately cut into sales of print editions.”

Survival of the Book’s post on the Entertainment Weekly Q&A with Dacre Stoker about the Dracula sequel: “We grew up thinking, Isn’t it too bad that the copyright was lost in the 1930s?… When [the vampire craze] was just beginning to pick up, we said, ‘You know what? We better get this thing done.'”

From Letters of Note, a 1777 Revolutionary War “masked letter.”

And yes, I know I missed Banned Books Week, but you can still read my post from last year, “Girls lean back everywhere….”

Google Books settlement being revised, plaintiffs want October 7th hearing rescheduled

Breaking news from James Grimmelmann’s blog:

The author and publisher plaintiffs filed a motion to adjourn the [October 7th Google Books settlement] fairness hearing, together with a short supporting memorandum. Google does not oppose the motion. The executive summary:

* The parties are renegotiating the settlement (with each other and the DOJ).

* The issues are too complex to present a revised settlement by October 7.

* They’ve requested a status conference for November 6 to discuss a future schedule, so they may have a revised settlement by then.

* The parties don’t yet know whether the changes will require a renotice.

This is clearly the result of the Department of Justice’s recommendation that the settlement be rejected by the court and renegotiated. (See my previous blog post for more information and links.)

Update: Reaction from the Open Book Alliance:

This is a huge victory for the many people and organizations who raised significant concerns that this settlement did not serve the public interest, stifled innovation, and restricted competition. It’s also an enormous loss for Google, which had been saying for months that no changes were necessary to the settlement. Now, that settlement, as we know it, is dead.

Justice Department recommends the Google Books settlement be rejected and renegotiated

Late last night the U.S. Department of Justice filed a 32-page “statement of interest” regarding the proposed Google Books settlement.  In short, the DOJ recommends that:

This Court should reject the Proposed Settlement in its current form and encourage the parties to continue negotiations to modify it so as to comply with Rule 23 and the copyright and antitrust laws.

This Resource Shelf post has a long link roundup of news reports and reactions. Here’s today’s New York Times article about it.

Law Professor James Grimmelmann has posted a detailed summary and explanation of the DOJ filing in his Laboratorium blog, which begins:

This is a really, really good brief. The Department of Justice appreciates both the potential and the dangers of the settlement. They’re clearly trying to lay the groundwork for a constructive way forward, while protecting copyright owners and competition.

The DoJ, speaking on behalf of the United States, has two broad areas of concern: fairness to copyright owner class members and protecting competition. It also strongly notes the public benefits from making out-of-print works more available, from creating accessible versions for the disabled, and from expanding distribution options for books. Their bottom line is that the settlement as it now stands is untenable, but that with modifications, it could be much better. It indicates that the parties are trying to negotiate (with each other and with the DoJ, it would appear) some of those changes, and the DoJ gives the court suggestions for how it ought to encourage the parties along….

Grimmelmann’s blog is a great source for detailed information about the Google Books controversy, with lots of useful links and interesting analysis.

The fairness hearing on the settlement is on October 7th. The court has received over 400 written filings in the case, and The Public Index has a list and links to them. These include objections, amicus briefs, letters of support, and letters raising concerns, from corporations, organizations, libraries, universities, publishers, individual authors, and even countries.

Here are a few other links I’ve been collecting over the past few weeks:

• Geoffrey Nunberg’s important essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education, “Google’s Book Search: A Disaster for Scholars,” and his Language Log post, “Google Books: A Metadata Train Wreck”
• A Personanondata blog post estimating the number of “orphan works” at 580,388.
• The website of the Open Book Alliance, a coalition of librarians, legal scholars, authors, publishers, and technology companies opposed to the proposed Google Book Settlement but in favor of open and competitive mass book digitization.
• Witness statements from the September 10th House Judiciary hearing on “Competition and Commerce in Digital Books.”
• Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s response to critics of the settlement.

Here are links to my previous blog posts about the Google Books settlement.

• July 3, 2009:  “…those lost books of the last century can be brought back to life and made searchable, discoverable, and citable…”
• April 30, 2009: Google and antitrust and censorship, oh my!
• April 5, 2009:  The controversy over Google Book Search
• October 28, 2008:  Great news about Google Book Search

“When I look at books, I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books…”

According to this Boston Globe article, the Cushing Academy, a New England prep school, is replacing all of its library books with a digital “learning center”:

This year, after having amassed a collection of more than 20,000 books, officials at the pristine campus about 90 minutes west of Boston have decided the 144-year-old school no longer needs a traditional library. The academy’s administrators have decided to discard all their books and have given away half of what stocked their sprawling stacks – the classics, novels, poetry, biographies, tomes on every subject from the humanities to the sciences. The future, they believe, is digital.

“When I look at books, I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books,’’ said James Tracy, headmaster of Cushing and chief promoter of the bookless campus. “This isn’t ‘Fahrenheit 451’ [the 1953 Ray Bradbury novel in which books are banned]. We’re not discouraging students from reading. We see this as a natural way to shape emerging trends and optimize technology.’’

Instead of a library, the academy is spending nearly $500,000 to create a “learning center,’’ though that is only one of the names in contention for the new space. In place of the stacks, they are spending $42,000 on three large flat-screen TVs that will project data from the Internet and $20,000 on special laptop-friendly study carrels. Where the reference desk was, they are building a $50,000 coffee shop that will include a $12,000 cappuccino machine.

And to replace those old pulpy devices that have transmitted information since Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 1400s, they have spent $10,000 to buy 18 electronic readers made by Amazon.com and Sony… Those who don’t have access to the electronic readers will be expected to do their research and peruse many assigned texts on their computers…

Cushing is one of the first schools in the country to abandon its books….

This is stupid on so many levels that I forced myself to wait a full day before blogging about it so I wouldn’t rant incoherently. Let me just pose a few questions:

• Did the librarians of Cushing Academy try to explain to their headmaster that only a small percentage of works are available in digital form, and that most of those aren’t free?
• Before discarding their 20,000 printed books, did they consider checking to see which ones aren’t available in digital form and keeping those? (In my experience many of the best reference works only exist in print form.)
• Did they think about the fact that even if the library pays to subscribe to subscription databases and encourages the use of free public domain works (Google Books, Project Gutenberg, etc.), that still means students won’t have access to the vast majority of works published after 1922 and still under copyright?
• What happens when students try to do research using Google Books and discover that the works they need are only available in print form and they can’t view more than a snippet of text online? Has Cushing Academy set up any kind of interlibrary loan program so students can get access to the printed books they need?
• Will teachers at the school be limited to using only texts available in digital form?
• Will students be instructed in how to find, use, evaluate, and cite digital sources? (Perhaps we should start calling the Cushing Academy “the Wikipedia school.”)
• What’s going to happen when these kids go off to college and discover that they don’t have a clue how to find or use printed sources? Will they even know that there’s a whole world of knowledge not available to them on the internet?
• Were the parents told about this in advance so they could choose to send their children to another school instead? (Especially since this year’s tuition for the Cushing Academy boarding school is over $42,000 and the day school is over $31,000.)

I could go on, but I’m going to stop now before my head explodes. I’ll leave you with an excerpt from the transcript of a talk that James Tracy (the headmaster) gave about “Libraries Beyond Books,” which is posted on the Cushing Academy website:

This is why, at Cushing Academy, where we are dedicated to forging the most far-sighted pedagogies for twenty-first century education, we have decided to be bookless within a year.

You know [holding up a book], if I look at this book I am struck by how limited it is. This is pretty bulky. I don’t mean to belittle or disparage it. I love books, and I love the representation of culture that they embody, but, from an information perspective, this is a very, very bulky way to reposit data by today’s standards.

We should be able to hold not only this book but thousands of others in one hand. So Cushing has decided to go from a library that right now is a warehouse of 20,000 books shelved in old technology to a library of millions of books utilizing far less space and with much richer and more powerful means of accessing that information. If I want to research all the references to Churchill just in our little 20,000 volume library, it’s going to take me months and years, but I can now data mine every reference to Churchill in 7 million volumes in a matter of seconds using search engines. Moreover, we find from a check of the records that our students aren’t really using the books extensively for research, anyway. They’re already doing most of that online, and, in fact, they are checking out more music and films than books from the Cushing library.

I’ll tell you that, with the financial crisis, as a Headmaster, I no longer see the point of maintaining this huge warehouse of underutilized space that we call a library. Better to free up that space while at the same time expanding by many orders of magnitude the school community’s access to information, literature, art, music via terminals that I term “Portals to Civilization.”

Great news about Google Book Search

Like everyone else, I use Google dozens of times a day. Their web search engine is still the best I’ve found, but Google also has a number of more specialized search functions that I like and use regularly. By far my favorite is Google Book Search, which is not one of the main functions listed on Google’s home page, but it will appear if you click the “more” link.

Google Book Search enables you to search the full texts of all of the books stored in its database, which is made up of books scanned from the collections of cooperating libraries (including Harvard University, Oxford University, and the New York Public Library, to name a few) and digital book files submitted by publishers. For books in the public domain (published in the U.S. before 1923), you can read as much of the text as you like online, download a PDF file of the entire book, and print as many pages as you want. For books still under copyright, if the author or publisher has given permission, you may be able to view a limited number of pages (though you cannot print or copy any of the text), but most books are restricted to only a few lines or no preview at all. Google displays detailed information about each book, and you can see a list of libraries that have it or buy a copy from an online bookstore.

I love Google Book Search because it helps me discover extremely useful and interesting books of all kinds– old and new, in-print and out-of-print, primary and secondary sources, and valuable sources of information long neglected or forgotten. I love having instant access to complete works in the public domain that are out of print and not available through my local libraries. I love being able to search the texts of millions of books simultaneously for words or phrases– names, places, dates, subjects, titles, historical events, etc.

Google Book Search has always been controversial because it scans books still under copyright without obtaining permission from the authors and publishers, and Google has been sued by the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers over it. The great news is, according to Publishers Weekly, the lawsuits have been settled, and everyone wins– millions of books under copyright will be searchable online, there will be a way to purchase full online access to many copyrighted works, the full texts of out-of-print books will be viewable for free on library computer terminals, authors and publishers will control whether or not their works are included and share in the revenue generated through online access to their works, a nonprofit Book Rights Registry will be set up, etc. As both a researcher and the wife of an author, I am thrilled.

Here are excerpts from the AAP statement detailing the settlement:

The Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers, and Google today announced a groundbreaking settlement agreement on behalf of a broad class of authors and publishers worldwide that would expand online access to millions of in-copyright books and other written materials in the U.S. from the collections of a number of major U.S. libraries participating in Google Book Search….

The agreement promises to benefit readers and researchers, and enhance the ability of authors and publishers to distribute their content in digital form, by significantly expanding online access to works through Google Book Search, an ambitious effort to make millions of books searchable via the Web. The agreement acknowledges the rights and interests of copyright owners, provides an efficient means for them to control how their intellectual property is accessed online and enables them to receive compensation for online access to their works.

If approved by the court, the agreement would provide:

• More Access to Out-of-Print Books — Generating greater exposure for millions of in-copyright works, including hard-to-find out-of-print books, by enabling readers in the U.S. to search these works and preview them online;
• Additional Ways to Purchase Copyrighted Books — Building off publishers’ and authors’ current efforts and further expanding the electronic market for copyrighted books in the U.S., by offering users the ability to purchase online access to many in-copyright books;
• Institutional Subscriptions to Millions of Books Online — Offering a means for U.S. colleges, universities and other organizations to obtain subscriptions for online access to collections from some of the world’s most renowned libraries;
• Free Access From U.S. Libraries — Providing free, full-text, online viewing of millions of out-of-print books at designated computers in U.S. public and university libraries; and
• Compensation to Authors and Publishers and Control Over Access to Their Works — Distributing payments earned from online access provided by Google and, prospectively, from similar programs that may be established by other providers, through a newly created independent, not-for-profit Book Rights Registry that will also locate rightsholders, collect and maintain accurate rightsholder information, and provide a way for rightsholders to request inclusion in or exclusion from the project.

Under the agreement, Google will make payments totaling $125 million. The money will be used to establish the Book Rights Registry, to resolve existing claims by authors and publishers and to cover legal fees. The settlement agreement resolves… lawsuits [that] challenged Google’s plan to digitize, search and show snippets of in-copyright books and to share digital copies with libraries without the explicit permission of the copyright owner.

Holders worldwide of U.S. copyrights can register their works with the Book Rights Registry and receive compensation from institutional subscriptions, book sales, ad revenues and other possible revenue models, as well as a cash payment if their works have already been digitized.

Libraries at the Universities of California, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Stanford have provided input into the settlement and expect to participate in the project, including by making their collections available. Along with a number of other U.S. libraries that currently work with Google, their significant efforts to preserve, maintain and provide access to books have played a critical role in achieving this agreement and, through their anticipated participation, they are furthering such efforts while making books even more accessible to students, researchers and readers in the U.S. It is expected that additional libraries in the U.S. will participate in this project in the future….

“It’s hard work writing a book, and even harder work getting paid for it,” said Roy Blount Jr., President of the Authors Guild. “As a reader and researcher, I’ll be delighted to stop by my local library to browse the stacks of some of the world’s great libraries. As an author, well, we appreciate payment when people use our work. This deal makes good sense.”

“This historic settlement is a win for everyone,” said Richard Sarnoff, Chairman of the Association of American Publishers. “From our perspective, the agreement creates an innovative framework for the use of copyrighted material in a rapidly digitizing world, serves readers by enabling broader access to a huge trove of hard-to-find books, and benefits the publishing community by establishing an attractive commercial model that offers both control and choice to the rightsholder.”

“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Today, together with the authors, publishers, and libraries, we have been able to make a great leap in this endeavor,” said Sergey Brin, co-founder & president of technology at Google. “While this agreement is a real win-win for all of us, the real victors are all the readers. The tremendous wealth of knowledge that lies within the books of the world will now be at their fingertips.”

Updates:

Here is Google’s blog post about the settlement.

Here the future changes to Google Book Search resulting from the agreement are explained.