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Questions Emerge as Terms of the CIC/Google Deal Become Public
A copy of Google's most recent library book scanning deal with the 12 libraries of Committee on Institutional Cooperation hit the web this week and, as it goes with all things Google, generated no small amount of controversy. The most intriguing aspect of the deal: CIC libraries may not see digital copies of in-copyright books scanned by Google for a very long time, if ever.
Section 4.11 of the agreement states that Google will hold the "University Copy" of these works "in escrow," releasing them to the contributing libraries if the "in-copyright Work becomes public domain;" if the "library party has obtained permission through contractual agreements with copyright holders that includes the right to make a copy of the In-Copyright Work and to provide it to the CIC or Source CIC University;" if "well established case law exists that in-copyright works can be copied and held" by the libraries without infringing on the rights of a copyright holder; if Google is in "material breach of its obligations" under other sections of the agreement; or if the CIC and Google "agree in writing" that the release of particular in-copyright works is "legally supported and appropriate." The exceptions, however, are pre-existing terms in the agreements two CIC libraries, Michigan and Wisconsin, signed with Google that call for the company to provide copies of scanned works.
On his personal blog yesterday, Digital Library Federation executive director Peter Brantley suggested he wasn't about to hold his breath waiting for Google's escrowed copies to be released. "Pretty much, unless Google ceases business operations, or there is a legal ruling or agreement with publishers," he wrote, "in-copyright material...will be held in escrow until such time as it becomes public domain." Further, should an agreement with publishers resolve the issue of Google's scanning of in-copyright works, which many experts believe is a much more likely outcome than a court ruling, it is highly probable that any agreement would forbid the transfer of these copies to libraries. "I find it hard (not impossible, but hard) to imagine why publishers, as a community, would permit the CIC to obtain such copies," Brantley noted. "The 'library copy' is something that has deeply irritated them since the Google Book Search program started."
The deal also includes a clause (4.9a) that has libraries, the majority of which in the CIC are public institutions, indemnify Google, a multi-billion private company, should disagreements arise over copyright status. That means the professional opinions of scholars and librarians as to the copyright status of certain works scanned by Google could be trumped by more cautious university lawyers.
The terms of the CIC deal reflect a change in Google's attitude toward the publishing industry. Mark Sandler, CIC director and former collection development officer at the University of Michigan University Library, pointed out to the LJ Academic Newswire that the CIC deal differed not only from Google's deal with Michigan, but from its other library partnerships. "I think there's just been a lot of discussion over the last two years," he said. Sandler said didn't disagree with some of observations concerning the deal, but said that, without the funds, time and staff to undertake their own major scanning efforts, CIC libraries are satisfied to have Google provide some measure of access: "Locally, we're feeling pretty good about this. For outsiders, it's good they're showing interest and are thoughtful about what, in an ideal world, could be done. But it's hard to speculate about that because that's in the abstract."
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Google Responds to EU Privacy Concerns
The European Union Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini this week lauded Google for agreeing to keep web user logs 18 months instead of 24 months. "It is good to see Google trying to meet our expectations," he said. Google's move comes after the EU's Article 29 working group expressed concerns over Google's privacy policies. "We believe we've struck a reasonable balance," wrote Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel on Google's blog this week. "Our policies are consistent with EU data protection laws, which acknowledge the need to set data retention periods that are proportionate and that enable companies like Google to comply with legal requirements."
The news comes as a London-based privacy watchdog gave Google the lowest rating in preliminary ranking of Internet Service Providers. Google officials have yet to address that report. Fleischer, however, did address the working group's concerns, noting that Google was willing to work on issues. [Privacy] principles sometimes conflict," Fleischer wrote. "While shorter retention periods are good for privacy, longer retention periods are needed for security, innovation and compliance reasons." Fleischer said it would "anonymize" user logs, though not delete them, after 18 months, unless otherwise required by law.
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U. of Chicago CIO: Entertainment Industry Proposals Would Spark a Technological "Arms Race"
With Congress poised to act, and the entertainment industry filing hundreds of lawsuits against students nationwide, Gregory A. Jackson, VP & CIO, The University of Chicago, told the House Committee on Science and Technology in written testimony that mandating campuses to use technology to fight piracy was a costly proposition, and ultimately a losing one. Social rather than technical tools are the key to reducing piracy, he said: "When we instead restrict behavior technologically, we get nothing but an arms race we can't win.
Like many of its peers, Jackson said, Chicago has been no stranger to entertainment industry lawyers, receiving 57 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaints in 2006. "Those complaints involve only about one half of one percent of our community," he noted. Some 58 percent of those complaints involved "music, and most of the rest involved movies, TV shows, or software."
He suggested that "market shortcomings are the principal drivers of infringement," particularly in terms of Digital Rights Management (DRM). DRM may appear to be a good idea, Jackson noted, but "has been plagued by poor execution, and so has come to be a frustrating obstacle rather than a convenient enabler." Moreover, "DRM has become a challenge to security specialists and hackers, who delight in showing how easily it can be subverted, exemplifying "the unwinnable arms race" and inducing vendors "to begin selling unprotected content." Jackson urged lawmakers, under pressure by the entertainment industry to crack down on campus piracy, to seek balance in any potential solution.
"Two high-level policy questions frame our discussion today," Jackson asserted. "The first is whether the copyright law that has grown up around industrially-organized publishing remains relevant and productive in today's widely distributed information economy." The second, he said "is to what degree network service providers should be responsible for illegal use of their networks."
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UNM, UNM Press Donate Books
The Center for Regional Studies (CRS) at the University of New Mexico (UNM) this week said it has donated more than $23,000 worth of books published by the UNM Press to underfunded public and tribal libraries in rural New Mexico. Tobiás Durán, director of CRS, said the center purchased a collection of 48 UNM Press titles and shipped them to 41 libraries across the state, with titles including recent releases, backlist titles, and bestsellers that emphasize "the New Mexican experience through history, cultural studies, literature, art, and nature, representing New Mexico's American Indian, Latino, and Anglo cultures.
The CRS book program is now in its third year. The center supports research and teaching with a focus on New Mexico, the U.S. Southwest, Mexico, Latin America, and Spain through the acquisition and preservation of manuscripts, documents, photographic, and oral history collections.
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Best Sellers in Politics and Law, October 2006–present, as compiled by YBP Library Services
(13-digit ISBNs included in brackets)
- Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion
Larson, Edward J.
Basic Books
2006. ISBN 046507510x [9780465075102]. $15.95
- Web Campaigning
Foot, Kirsten A.
MIT Press
2006. ISBN 0262562200 [9780262562201]. $27.50
- Modern Liberty: And the Limits of Government
Fried, Charles
W.W. Norton
2007. ISBN 0393060004 [9780393060003]. $24.95
- Same Sex, Different States: When Same-Sex Marriages Cross State Lines
Koppelman, Andrew
Yale University Press
2006. ISBN 0300113404 [9780300113402] $35.00
- Inventing Human Rights: A History
Hunt, Lynn Avery
W.W. Norton
2007. ISBN 0393060950 [9780393060959]. $25.95
- Toward a Theory of Human Rights: Religion, Law, Courts
Perry, Michael J.
Cambridge University Press
2007. ISBN 0521865514 [9780521865517]. $70.00
- Change of State: Information, Policy, and Power
Braman, Sandra
MIT Press
2006. ISBN 0262025973 [9780262025973]. $37.50
- Masters of Illusion: American Leadership in the Media Age
Rosefielde, Steven
Cambridge University Press
2007. ISBN 0521857449 [9780521857444]. $34.00
- Alexis De Tocqueville: A Life
Brogan, Hugh Editor
Yale University Press
2006. ISBN 0300108036 [9780300108033]. $35.00
- Little Book of Plagiarism
Posner, Richard A.
Pantheon
2007. ISBN 037542475X [9780375424755]. $10.95
- Complicity with Evil: The United Nations in the Age of Modern Genocide
Lebor, Adam
Yale University Press
2006. ISBN 0300111711. [9780300111712]. $25.00
- Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law
Sullivan, William M., et al.
Jossey-Bass
2007. ISBN 078798261x [9780787982614]. $40.00
- Religious Freedom and the Constitution
Eisgruber, Christopher L.
Harvard University Press
2007. ISBN 0674023056 [9780674023055]. $28.95
- Activism, Inc.: How the Outsourcing of Grassroots Campaigns Is Strangling
Progressive Politics in America
Fisher, Dana R.
Stanford University
2006. ISBN 0804752176 [9780804752176]. $24.95
- New Americans: A Guide to Immigration Since 1965
Ed. by Mary C. Waters
Harvard University Press
2007. ISBN 0674023579 [9780674023574]. $45.00
- Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World
Smith, Rupert
Alfred A. Knopf
2007. ISBN 0307265625 [9780307265623]. $30.00
- Why Arendt Matters
Young-Bruehl, Elisabeth
Yale University Press
2006. ISBN 0300120443 [9780300120448]. $22.00
- Enforcing Equality: Congress, the Constitution, and the Protection of Individual Rights
Zietlow, Rebecca E.
New York University
2006. ISBN 0814797075 [9780814797075] $45.00
- Fallacy of Campaign Finance Reform
Samples, John Curtis
University of Chicago Press
2006. ISBN 0226734501 [9780226734507]. $29.00
- Constitutional Democracy: Creating and Maintaining a Just Political Order
Murphy, Walter F.
Johns Hopkins University Press
2007. ISBN 0801884705 [9780801884702]. $55.00
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