Was your book scanned by Google? Mine was. Claim forms from settlement now on line. Opt out deadline in May of this year. Claim deadline is next year.

For more information, see my Writer's Notebook post at: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Malcolm

Malcolm, how does one find out if their book was scanned? I have a Google account but I can't log in!

Malcolm,

If Lulu sent a pdf copy of your book to Google without your consent, how are Google to blame? Surely, Lulu gave permission and should be held to account for doing so.

Hi Marie,

Your book is only listed. It isn't part of the book search programme:

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You can't do anything about that. Can you imagine the number of products on sale in the present recession that are no longer available to buy? There must be thousands listed all over the web.

The writer must give Lulu permission to send a book to Google.
What is the downside of have your book previewed on Google? I see it as a benefit.

Hi Marie,

This is an example of how out-of-print books remain online:

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This book was first published in 1983 and has gone through three different publishers. On Amazon "Springer" is listed as the publisher but the first publisher was MTP Press (academic publishers) and Springer didn't publish the book until much later. The sales rank of over seven million isn't because a new book was sold but maybe a secondhand book was sold through Amazon.

The second edition of the book was published in 2006 by Elsevier (Churchill Livingston). The book has been updated with new chapters added and a new title:

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The second edition has a new ISBN #, while the first edition retains the ISBN that was used by the first three publishers.

I agree with Dick, Shelagh, you are the copyright holder. Lulu is essentially working as a printer and distributor and never held the copyright. POD books are always like this since iUniverse, PA, Lulu and the others are not serving as publishers in the traditional sense. More and more authors, even in mainstream, are the copyright holders these days.

Brew, I have a Google account as well, mainly for use on Blogger. That number isn't the one they want on the site. You need to create an account on that site maintained by Rust, Inc. There you can find out if your book is included. If not, no worries. If so, you can opt out of the settlement or file a claim by the deadline next year.

Also, when the settlement was announced last year, I posted something here about it and I think I included a link one could use to find out whether one's book had been scanned. That link can probably also be found by doing to the link in yesterday's blog post and poking around there until you find references to last year's settlement. There should be a link in that initial settlement info where one can find or not find one's book on the list.

Malcolm

Malcolm,

I still don't see how Google are to blame for using a file sent to them by Lulu. If an author did not give permission and the file was sent, surely Lulu is breaching copright by sending the file.

In future, will Google contact authors to check that files sent to them through Lulu have permission from those authors?

I for one think as Dick that Google book search is a boon for us struggling writers.

I think the Sewers are just looking for a big manhole.

Sewers? Suers?

deleted by merri

Once again, Lulu has a spot for each book called "Enable Google Book Search." If the writer doe not click there, the book will not go to Google.

As a result of the litigation, Google will maintain a giant database that's available online, but with compensation provisions for authors.

I agree that it will help authors, but see no point in allowing Google to violate fair use copyright rules.

The search feature has been especially useful to me in finding out-of-copyright books that are either hard to find or haven't been available for years.

Malcolm

P.S. Shelagh, if you were to send me a copy of a manuscript and I posted it on the Internet, it wouldn't be your fault that I chose to violate copyright laws. I know better than to do that anyway, and Google's attorneys also should have known it. Having a copy of something isn't construed anywhere as authorisation to reproduce and sell it.