Yesterday, members of TWUC National Council filed a statement, with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, objecting to aspects of the proposed settlement of a lawsuit in the United States against the media giant Google. This litigation followed Google’s digitization, without permission, of entire copyright works.

"We are pleased that the proposed settlement of the authors’ class action against Google establishes a Book Rights Registry with the capacity to act collectively on behalf of authors and publishers. We do, however, object to certain elements of the settlement and have requested that it be modified to address these issues.” said Union Chair Erna Paris.

In their Statement of Objections the Union’s National Council criticized parts of the settlement that they saw as an expropriation of their rights in violation of the Berne Convention, an international agreement that protects the copyright of authors worldwide. The modifications they request include the following:

Google should not digitize foreign works published only outside the United States and never authorized for distribution within the United States.

Settlement of the lawsuit should deal only with Google’s past wrongdoing and should not entitle Google to digitize more works published prior to January 5, 2009, unless the copyright owners of those works sign up voluntarily with the Book Rights Registry.

Google should not be entitled to license works whose owners do not sign up with the Book Rights Registry, particularly works by foreign authors, who are less likely than United States residents to know about the Book Rights Registry.

Public libraries and non-profit higher educational institutions, that wish to provide free-of-charge access to copyright works, should pay a licensing fee to facilitate payment to the rightsholders.

Authors of foreign works should be represented on the board of the new Book Rights Registry.

Future uses agreed to by Google and the Book Rights Registry that are not covered under the settlement should not be implemented for any given work unless the author in question agrees to the new use. Rightsholders should not be required to take steps to exclude their books.

Please see Statement of Objections. (47.2 KB PDF)

The Writers' Union of Canada is our country's national organization representing professional authors of books. Founded in 1973, the Union is dedicated to fostering writing in Canada, and promoting the rights, freedoms, and economic well being of all writers. For more information, please visit www.writersunion.ca.

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For additional information:
Deborah Windsor, Executive Director
The Writers’ Union of Canada
416-703-8982 Ext. 221
dwindsor@writersunion.ca