Google Books is swindling my authors and publishing house

An author who I'm working with contacted me during the week:

Not sure if this is your concern - I've just been shown a Google books' link to a book called Ethical Practice for Health Professionals by Heather Freegard - and it's actually the first edition of our textbook.

It is my concern. But not because the link incorrectly leads to the first edition of Jane Grellier and Veronica Goerkes' textbook rather than the Freegard book. I'm concerned because the entire first edition of my authors' textbook is available on Google Books. This first edition is still in print and in copyright.

Google states:

If we've determined that a book is out of copyright, or the publisher or rightsholder has given us permission, you'll be able to page through the entire book from start to finish, as many times as you like.

Ahem! How did Google determine that this book was out of copyright? And no permission was given, thank you very much!

I'm working on the second edition currently and it will be published at the end of the year. But despite this the first edition will continue to be in copyright - it is highly unlikely that permission to have the entire first-edition text online will be given.

Suffice it to say, I've written to Google demanding that they take this unauthorised version of the book down from their website and the senior management of my publishing house is following up the issue further. I wrote four days ago but the material is still available for viewing.

Last year Google agreed to pay US$125 million to authors and publishers to settle two three-year old lawsuits over its scanning of out-of-print but copyright-protected books and placing them online. As a consequence, out-of-print but copyright-protected books now have charges - although it is up to publishers to discover that their books have been placed online and ask for purchase options to be made.

Although the court cases' findings are US-based and do not hold internationally, negotiations are underway between Google Books and Australian publishers. The publishing house I'm employed at has agreed to work with Google Books (with a can't beat 'em, join 'em attitude) but the details are still being finalised and nothing definitive has been decided on.

I've checked out books I've worked on over the last three years and happily none appear in their entirety on Google Books. Interestingly many of the books with higher plate costs I've worked on are not listed which suggests that Google Books' decisions are arbitrary and not even based on market share.

I didn't work on Jane and Veronicas' first edition but I'm very annoyed for them. This is their work displayed free of charge, without royalties being paid. I'm also annoyed for my publishing house because displaying electronic versions of books that are still in print and in copyright is a potential loss of profit - and I'm annoyed for my own sake because loss of profit affects my employer's ability to keep me employed.

The third party will pick up the tab

In Chris Anderson's 2004 article The Long Tail (Wired) he talks about three rules for entertainment business success on the Internet:

1. make everything available
2. cut the price and
3. help consumers find what they want.

His article describes how aggregating the long tail of niche markets is where the money is - an idea which he expands in his book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More published in 2006.

Chris' article was groundbreaking for me as I always thought that across-the-board profit was generated through the popular-blockbuster staples which naturally sidelined subcultural, artistic and unusual products. It was relieving to learn that through individuality there is market power and that the Internet flips the traditional market mechanism through its capacity and distribution powers.

Because I wanted to know more, I looked at Chris' blog, also called The Long Tail, and found other ideas he has. Currently, he is talking most about the concept of "Free" (Video 3:19). In his Wired article earlier this year, Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business, Chris outlines that providing products for free is the new Internet economy, all the winners do it (Google, Yahoo!, Amazon etc.) and the benefits are enormous.

The benefits, as he puts it, are "a three way market. Here a third party pays to participate in a market created by a free exchange between the first two parties."

He points out that we are already familiar with this experience by describing the traditional media market where radio and television are free to air and paid for by advertising. He also highlights that newspapers rely on advertising to cover their costs of print and distribution so that the high prices are not passed on to the consumer.

He admits that advertisers will not pay for everything but describes ways to make money from providing products for free: "selling information about consumers to brand licensing, 'value-added' subscriptions, and direct ecommerce (see How-To Wiki for a complete list)."

In July this year Chris' book about this topic was published. Unsurprisingly, Free: the Future of a Radical Price is available at no cost in electronic and audio format. There is also the option to purchase the physical copy as well.

Disclosure policy -

Following on from week 5's reading on blogging and conflicts of interests I've written my own disclosure policy (with help from disclosure.policy.org which generates a personalised disclosure through a step-by-step process).

I appreciate the ludicrousness of having a policy for a zen-minimalist-type blog that has absolutely no conflict of interest except my personal preferences (my favourite colour is green) and my employment (I work in book publishing) but reading Penelope Trunk's views on blogging and conflicts of interest compelled me to get something down.

Penelope writes a well-polished spin of the truth, and although her post is fascinating (in a I-can't-look-away-from-the-car-crash way) I thought her blog eradicated her credibility and painted her as an exploitative opportunist. The comment by Aussie writer (right near the end) summed up my response to her view that

"[r]eaders should not care about the business dealings of the writers or their publishers."

Aussie writer's response:

"Your argument for not disclosing is self-serving and flawed. I refer you to the cash for comments scandal in Australia."

And so, because Penelope does not accept responsibility (a theme linking to my last blog about defamation on the net), I've knocked up a disclosure policy (um, without having much to disclose...).

This policy is valid from 04 September 2009

This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. This blog does not accept any form of advertising, sponsorship, or paid insertions. I write for my own purposes. However, I may be influenced by my background, occupation, religion, political affiliation or experience.

As owner of this blog I am not compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely mine. If I claim or appear to be an expert on a certain topic or product or service area, I will only endorse products or services that I believe, based on my expertise, are worthy of such endorsement. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider.

This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest. However, I am employed by Cengage Learning and so am naturally biased towards them.