Writes Kevin Donovan on our blog: _Although it is being [modified][1], in the interest of better informing students about the Google Books Settlement, Students for Free Culture has solicited the thoughts of a variety of experts who are providing guest posts reflecting on how the settlement will likely impact students._
___In this guest post, Brandon C. Butler, Law and Policy Fellow at the Association of Research Libraries, addresses the settlement in the context of institutional equality and intellectual freedom__. _ First, we would like to thank Students for Free Culture for inviting us to share our thoughts on this important issue. The [Association of Research Libraries][2] has followed the Google Books litigation closely, and filed Comments with the court along with our partners the [American Library Association][3] and the [Association of College and Research Libraries][4]. These three associations collectively represent over 300,000 information professionals and thousands of libraries of all kinds throughout the United States and Canada. These associations also cooperate in the [Library Copyright Alliance][5] to address other copyright issues that affect libraries and their patrons. Google and the authors and publishers who sued the search giant over its book-scanning activities have proposed a settlement agreement that would end the suit and govern Google's scanning going forward. In essence, the settlement would allow Google to continue scanning, and even to offer new products based on the body of digitized books it creates, so long as it shares revenue from these services with rights-holders. More information from the Library Copyright Alliance about the Settlement is available [here][6]. While the parties to this dispute have agreed to the settlement, the judge presiding over the case still has to approve its terms. Copyright owners and other interested parties have filed [hundreds of comments][7] with the court. Members of the LCA filed [Comments][8] in support of the settlement, but we also raised some serious concerns that we felt the court should address by careful oversight. Students for Free Culture asked us to explain two concerns we raised in our Comments: increasing inequalities between universities and limits to intellectual freedom. Widespread access to a Google institutional subscription plan with millions of digital books would help level the playing field between elite research universities and less privileged institutions around the country. If the price of the subscription is too high, however, it will have exactly the opposite effect: Students and faculty will demand access to the Google service, but only the wealthiest institutions will be able to afford it. Paying a high price for the Google subscription would divert significant funding away from other important university priorities, creating new inequalities even among universities that have the service. Some schools could be forced to sacrifice heavily to keep up with the wealthiest institutions. What are the chances that the settlement will have this effect? It is hard to say. If its price is modeled on increasingly exorbitant academic journal subscription prices, the Google service will be out of reach for most institutions. The authors and publishers of most books in the Google corpus are most likely academics who prize access over profits, but if the interest of rights-holders is represented solely (or mostly) by commercial writers and publishers, the price could be set too high. Intellectual freedom is at stake in the settlement in several ways. First, concerns about user privacy could have a chilling effect on research use of the Google product. Second, the settlement only requires Google to provide access to 85% of the in-copyright, out-of-print works it has scanned. This gives Google discretion to exclude over 1 million books. Google itself may not want to "be evil," but it will surely encounter pressure from angry partisans seeking exclusion of disfavored books. The Book Search product will give everyone, including children, access to up to 20% of any book from anywhere, and 100% of any book from free public access terminals in public libraries. How long before an angry parent demands that Google ban racy or politically edgy works? The First Amendment does not require private companies like Google to forego censorship, and there will surely be pressure on Google to choose economic expedience over political principle. Unlike other critics who have voiced similar concerns, we do not oppose the Settlement overall. We believe its likely benefits substantially outweigh its possible harms. The parties and the court can ensure this net gain by awareness of these possible harms and reasonable vigilance against them. Thank you again for this chance to share our views. - Brandon C. Butler **Previous Posts in this Series** * [Introduction][9] * [Derek Slater of Google][10] * [Rebecca Jeschke of EFF][11] * [James Grimmelmann of NYLS][12] [1]: http://laboratorium.net/archive/2009/09/22/gbs_motion_to_adjourn _the_fairness_hearing [2]: http://www.arl.org/ [3]: http://www.ala.org/ [4]: http://www.acrl.org/ [5]: http://www.librarycopyrightalliance.org/ [6]: http://www.librarycopyrightalliance.org/submissions/domestic/goo gle.shtml [7]: http://thepublicindex.org/documents/responses [8]: http://www.arl.org/bm%7Edoc/googlebrieffinal.pdf [9]: http://freeculture.org/blog/2009/09/22/what-does-the-google- book-search-settlement-mean-for-students/ [10]: http://freeculture.org/blog/2009/09/23/gbs-and-students-derek- slater-of-google-on-the-democratization-culture/ [11]: http://freeculture.org/blog/2009/09/24/gbs-and-students-eff- privacy/ [12]: http://freeculture.org/blog/2009/09/25/gbs-and-students- grimmelmann-orphan-work/ URL: http://freeculture.org/blog/2009/09/28/gbs-and-students-arl-equality-intellectual-freedom/ _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
