Here's an excerpt from the press release:

This diagram, developed by Jonathan Band, explores the many possible routes and outcomes of the Google Books Settlement, including avenues into the litigation and appeals process.

Now that the fairness hearing on the Google Books Settlement has occurred, it is up to Judge Chin to decide whether the amended settlement agreement (ASA), submitted to the Court by Google, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers, is "fair, reasonable, and adequate." As the diagram shows, however, Judge Chin’s decision is only the next step in a very complex legal proceeding that could take a dozen more turns before reaching resolution. Despite the complexity of the diagram, it does not reflect every possible twist in the case, nor does it address the substantive reasons why a certain outcome may occur or the impact of Congressional intervention through legislation. As Band states, "the precise way forward is more difficult to predict than the NCAA tournament. And although the next step in the GBS saga may occur this March, many more NCAA tournaments will come and go before the buzzer sounds on this dispute."

1. "The Long and Winding Road to the Google Books Settlement"
2. Digital Video: The Google Books Settlement: Issues and Options
3. The Google Books Settlement: Who Is Filing And What Are They Saying?
4. Google Book Settlement Fairness Hearing Postponed
5. "Antitrust and the Google Books Settlement: The Problem of Simultaneity"

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

EFF today released Unintended Consequences: 12 Years Under the DMCA. This is the sixth update to the report, which aims to catalog all the reported instances where the DMCA's ban on tampering with DRM have been abused to stymie fair use, free speech, and competition, rather than to attack "piracy."

Congress enacted the DMCA's ban on bypassing DRM at the urging of entertainment industry lobbyists who argued that DRM backed by law would quell digital copyright infringement. Of course, 12 years later, that exactly hasn't worked out. Nor is it likely to ever work out. But lots of industries have recognized that these provisions of the DMCA are good for other things—like impeding scientific research and legitimate competition. The Unintended Consequences report collects these stories, including oldies like Lexmark's effort to block toner cartridge refilling and new cases like the lawsuit against RealDVD.

Other new additions to the report include Apple's use of the DMCA to lock iPhone owners to Apple's own App Store for software, Apple's DMCA threats against Bluwiki for hosting discussions about iPod interoperability, and Texas Instruments' use of the DMCA to threaten calculator hobbyists trying to write their own operating systems.

1. "Looking for Fair Use in the DMCA's Safety Dance"
2. Jonathan Band’s Testimony on the DMCA Film Clip Compilation Exemption
3. Library of Congress Releases Audio Files of Washington DMCA Exemption Hearings
4. “The Google Book Search Settlement: Ends, Means, and the Future of Books”

Here's an excerpt:

This brief essay argues that the proposed settlement in the Google Books case, although formally non-exclusive, would have the practical effect of giving Google an exclusive license to a large number of books. The settlement itself does not create mechanisms for Google's competitors to obtain licenses to orphan books and competitors are unlikely to be able to obtain similar settlements of their own. Recent amendments to the settlement do not change this conclusion.

1. Stanford University Signs Amended Google Book Search Settlement Agreement
2. Objections to the Google Books Settlement and Responses in the Amended Settlement: A Report
3. Google Book Search Settlement Amended
4. Pamela Samuelson: "DOJ Says No to Google Book Settlement"
5. “The Google Book Search Settlement: Ends, Means, and the Future of Books”

Here's an excerpt:

There has always been a cyclical relationship between the prevention of piracy and the protection of civil liberties. While civil liberties advocates previously warned about the aggressive nature of copyright protection initiatives, more recently, a number of major players in the music industry have eventually ceded to less direct forms of control over consumer behavior. As more aggressive forms of consumer control, like litigation, have receded, we have also seen a rise in more passive forms of consumer surveillance. Moreover, even as technology has developed more perfect means for filtering and surveillance over online piracy, a number of major players have opted in favor of “tolerated use,” a term coined by Professor Tim Wu to denote the allowance of uses that may be otherwise infringing, but that are allowed to exist for public use and enjoyment. Thus, while the eventual specter of copyright enforcement and monitoring remains a pervasive digital reality, the market may fuel a broad degree of consumer freedom through the toleration or taxation of certain kinds of activities.

This Article is meant largely to address and to evaluate these shifts by drawing attention to the unique confluence of these two important moments: the growth of tolerated uses, coupled with an increasing trend towards more passive forms of piracy surveillance in light of the balance between copyright enforcement and civil liberties. The content industries may draw upon a broad definition of disobedience in their campaigns to educate the public about copyright law, but the market’s allowance of DRM-free content suggests an altogether different definition. The divide in turn between copyright enforcement and civil liberties results in a perfect storm of uncertainty, suggesting the development of an even further division between the role of the law and the role of the marketplace in copyright enforcement and innovation, respectively.

1. Forcing the Net Through a Sieve: Why Copyright Filtering is Not a Viable Solution for U.S. ISPs
2. John Wiley & Sons to Use Attributor Anti-Piracy Service
3. “File-Sharing and Copyright”
4. Letters Fly over Anticipated Appointment of PRO-IP Act’s “Copyright Czar”
5. France’s “Three-Strikes” Copyright Bill Strikes Out

Read more about the hearing at "GBS: Fairness Hearing Report"; "GBS: Fairness Hearing Report Part II"; "Google Settlement Fairness Hearing, Part Two: DOJ Expresses Opposition; Parties Mount Vigorous Defense"; and "Objectors Outnumber Supporters in First Half of Google Settlement Fairness Hearing."

Also see: "Google Book Search Settlement: Updating the Numbers, Part 1."

1. Preliminary Approval Granted for Amended Google Book Search Settlement
2. Google Book Settlement Fairness Hearing Postponed
3. Justice Department Sends Civil Investigative Demands to Google about Google Book Search Settlement
4. Foreign Opposition to the Google Book Search Settlement
5. “The Google Book Search Settlement: A New Orphan-Works Monopoly?”

Here's an excerpt:

This Article explains the genesis of the Google Book Search (GBS) project and the copyright infringement lawsuit challenging it that the litigants now wish to settle with a comprehensive restructuring of the market for digital books. At first blush, the settlement seems to be a win-win-win, as it will make millions of books more available to the public, result in new streams of revenues for authors and publishers, and give Google a chance to recoup its investment in scanning millions of books. Notwithstanding these benefits, a closer examination of the fine details of the proposed GBS settlement should give academic authors some pause. The interests of academic authors were not adequately represented during the negotiations that yielded the proposed settlement. Especially troublesome are provisions in the proposed settlement are the lack of meaningful constraints on the pricing of institutional subscriptions and the plan for disposing of revenues derived from the commercialization of "orphan" and other unclaimed books. The Article also raises concerns about whether the parties' professed aspirations for GBS to be a universal digital library are being undermined by their own withdrawals of books from the regime the settlement would establish. Finally, the Article suggests changes that should be made to the proposed settlement to make it fair, reasonable, and adequate to the academic authors whose works make up a substantial proportion of the GBS corpus. Even with these modifications, however, there are serious questions about whether the class defined in the PASA can be certified consistent with Rule 23, whether the settlement is otherwise compliant with Rule 23, whether the settlement is consistent with the antitrust laws, and whether approval of this settlement is an appropriate exercise of judicial power.

1. Stanford University Signs Amended Google Book Search Settlement Agreement
2. U.S. Department of Justice Files Objection to Google Book Search Settlement
3. University of California Faculty Bodies Comment on Goggle Book Search Settlement
4. Pamela Samuelson on "The Audacity of the Google Book Search Settlement"
5. ACRL, ALA, and ARL File Comments about Google Book Search Settlement

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

What questions should consumers ask before buying a digital book or reader? Today the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) published "Digital Books and Your Rights," a checklist for readers considering buying into the digital book marketplace.

Over the last few months, the universe of digital books has expanded dramatically, with products like Amazon's Kindle, Google Books, Internet Archive's Text Archive, Barnes and Noble's Nook, and Apple's upcoming iPad poised to revolutionize reading. But while this digital books revolution could make books more accessible than ever before, there are lingering questions about the future of reader privacy, consumers' rights, and potential censorship.

EFF's checklist outlines eight categories of questions readers should ask as they evaluate new digital book products and services, including:

*Does the service protect your privacy by limiting tracking of you and your reading?

*When you pay for a book, do you own the book, or do you just rent or license it?

*Is the service censorship resistant?

1. The Google Books Settlement and the Future of Information Access Conference
2. EFF Raises Concerns over Privacy Issues in Goggle Book Search
3. Sony Offers One Million Public Domain Books for Its Current E-Book Readers
4. EFF Releases Letter to Google about Reader Privacy and Google Book Search
5. Reading Rights Coalition Protests Kindle Read Aloud Limits at Authors Guild

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

To mark the opening of its photostream in the Commons today, the National Archives is posting a new photo set containing more than two hundred photographs of the American West by renowned American photographer Ansel Adams. The photographs, taken between 1941 and 1942 as part of a Department of the Interior mural project, feature the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Glacier and Zion national parks, in addition to Death Valley, Saguero, and Canyon de Chelly national monuments.

The Ansel Adams photographs join a larger selection of more than 3,000 National Archives images that are part of the National Archives' Flickr photostream. The photostream contains a variety of images from some of the National Archives most popular collections, including images of the Civil War by Mathew Brady and associates; images from the Environmental Protection Agency's 1970s photo-documentary project DOCUMERICA; images from the Records of the Women's Bureau depicting women in the war labor effort during World War II; and a grouping of favorite photos and documents from the National Archives, featuring among others the 1970 photograph of President Nixon shaking hands with Elvis Presley.

1. Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for Digitization for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums
2. "Smithsonian Team Flickr: A Library, Archives, and Museums Collaboration in Web 2.0 Space"
3. Google Books Adds Creative Commons Licence Options
4. Controlling Access to and Use of Online Cultural Collections: A Survey of U.S. Archives, Libraries and Museums for IMLS
5. Carolina Digital Library and Archives Fall-Winter 08/09 Newsletter

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Department of Justice today advised the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that despite the substantial progress reflected in the proposed amended settlement agreement in The Authors Guild Inc. et al. v. Google Inc., class certification, copyright and antitrust issues remain. The department also said that the United States remains committed to working with the parties on issues concerning the scope and content of the settlement.

In its statement of interest filed with the court today, the department stated, "Although the United States believes the parties have approached this effort in good faith and the amended settlement agreement is more circumscribed in its sweep than the original proposed settlement, the amended settlement agreement suffers from the same core problem as the original agreement: it is an attempt to use the class action mechanism to implement forward-looking business arrangements that go far beyond the dispute before the court in this litigation."

On Sept. 18, 2009, the department submitted views to the court on the original proposed settlement agreement. At that time, the department proposed that the parties consider changes to the agreement that might help address the United States' concerns, including imposing limitations on the most open-ended provisions for future licensing, eliminating potential conflicts among class members, providing additional protections for unknown rights holders, addressing the concerns of foreign authors and publishers, eliminating the joint-pricing mechanisms among publishers and authors, and providing a mechanism by which Google's competitors can gain comparable access.

In today's filing, the department recognized that the parties made substantial progress on a number of these issues. For example, the proposed amended settlement agreement eliminates certain open-ended provisions that would have allowed Google to engage in certain unspecified future uses, appoints a fiduciary to protect rightsholders of unclaimed works, reduces the number of foreign works in the settlement class, and eliminates the most-favored nation provision that would have guaranteed Google optimal license terms into the future. However, the changes do not fully resolve the United States' concerns. The department also said that the amended settlement agreement still confers significant and possibly anticompetitive advantages on Google as a single entity, thereby enabling the company to be the only competitor in the digital marketplace with the rights to distribute and otherwise exploit a vast array of works in multiple formats.

The department continues to believe that a properly structured settlement agreement in this case offers the potential for important societal benefits. The department stated that it is committed to continuing to work with the parties and other stakeholders to help develop solutions through which copyright holders could allow for digital use of their works by Google and others, whether through legislative or market-based activities.

Read more about it at "Department of Justice Criticizes Amended Google Settlement over Copyright, Antitrust Issues"; "DOJ: Google Book Settlement Better, but Not Yet Good"; an "DOJ on Amended Google Books Settlement: Better, but Still Opposed."

1. Google Book Search Settlement Amended
2. Kenneth Crews on the U.S. Department of Justice Google Book Search Settlement Filing
3. U.S. Department of Justice Files Objection to Google Book Search Settlement
4. Justice Department Sends Civil Investigative Demands to Google about Google Book Search Settlement
5. Justice Department Launches Antitrust Investigation into Google Book Search Settlement

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Stanford’s expanded agreement, which establishes it as a Fully Participating Library under the terms of the amended settlement agreement, is a milestone in Stanford’s commitment to the program and to the provision of public access to millions of its books. . . .

University Librarian Michael A. Keller said, "We are highly supportive of the amended settlement, which offers an enormous public good, making the full text of millions of books available to the American public."

Keller added that another effect of the settlement is to respect the rights and prerogatives of authors and publishers at the same time as it increases public access. "The settlement creates a working partnership among authors, publishers, libraries and Google that will usher in a revolutionary change in access to books on library shelves, even beyond the incredibly powerful vision that Google Books first developed. It’s no longer just about finding books of potential interest; it makes them vastly more readily readable. The agreement also compensates authors and publishers for the use of works that, by virtue of being out of print, would not have earned the rightsholders any income—a novel and, for most authors, a most welcome innovation."

Over the past five years, Google has scanned over 1.7 million books owned by Stanford, and plans to scan millions more. More than two dozen other major libraries around the world are now involved in this project.

1. Department of Justice Files Statement about Amended Google Book Search Settlement
2. A Guide for the Perplexed Part III: The Amended Settlement Agreement
3. Google Book Search Settlement Amended
4. A Guide for the Perplexed Part II: The Amended Google-Michigan Agreement
5. ACRL, ALA, and ARL File Comments about Google Book Search Settlement

Here's an excerpt:

In its Library Project, Google is scanning millions of books from the world's leading research libraries to include in a searchable database. This scanning has occurred without the copyright owners' authorization, leading to the class action copyright infringement lawsuit, Authors Guild v. Google, Inc. The central legal issue in the litigation is whether copyright law's fair use doctrine provides Google with a defense against the authors' claims. Ultimately, the parties reached a settlement. The proposed Settlement Agreement is an extremely complex document which, if approved by the court, will govern the future of the Google Library Project. It creates a mechanism that allows Google to scan and display the full text of millions of books. In exchange, Google will pay fees to each book's rightsholder. The proposed settlement has precipitated a heated public debate over competition concerns, privacy, intellectual freedom, and the rights of authors and publishers. This article traces the history of the Google Library Project and discusses in-depth the original Google Library Project, the litigation, the original Settlement Agreement, debate concerning the approval of the Settlement Agreement, and the Amended Settlement Agreement.

1. "Academic Author Objections to the Google Book Search Settlement"
2. Stanford University Signs Amended Google Book Search Settlement Agreement
3. Objections to the Google Books Settlement and Responses in the Amended Settlement: A Report
4. The Google Books Settlement: Who Is Filing And What Are They Saying?
5. "Antitrust and the Google Books Settlement: The Problem of Simultaneity"

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Copyright Office of the Library of Congress is adopting an interim regulation governing mandatory deposit of electronic works published in the United States and available only online. The regulation establishes that online-only works are exempt from mandatory deposit until a demand for deposit of copies or phonorecords of such works is issued by the Copyright Office. It also states that categories of online-only works subject to demand will first be identified in the regulations, and names electronic serials as the first such category for which demands will issue. In addition, the regulation sets forth the process for issuing and responding to a demand for deposit, amends the definition of a "complete copy" of a work for purposes of mandatory deposit of online-only works, and establishes new best edition criteria for electronic serials available only online.

1. UK Intellectual Property Office: © The Way Ahead: A Strategy for Copyright in the Digital Age
2. Comments on U.S. Copyright Office's "Mandatory Deposit of Published Electronic Works Available Only Online" Proposal
3. U.S. Copyright Office Proposes Rule Change for Mandatory Deposit of Electronic Works Published in the United States and Available Only Online
4. Podcast about Copyright Office Meeting on Copyright Exceptions for the Blind or Other Persons with Disabilities

• "The ACTA Guide, Part One: The Talks To-Date"
• "ACTA Guide, Part Two: The Documents (Official and Leaked)"
• "ACTA Guide, Part Three: Transparency and ACTA Secrecy"

1. Google D.C. Talk: ACTA—The Global Treaty That Could Reshape the Internet
2. A Guide for the Perplexed Part III: The Amended Settlement Agreement
3. John Wiley & Sons to Use Attributor Anti-Piracy Service
4. A Guide for the Perplexed Part II: The Amended Google-Michigan Agreement

Here's an excerpt:

There is much to praise in this settlement [Google Books Settlement]. Lawsuits are expensive and uncertain. They take years to resolve. The deal Google struck guaranteed the public more free access to free content than "fair use" would have done. Twenty percent is better than snippets, and a system that channels money to authors is going to be liked much more than a system that does not. (Not to mention that the deal is elegant and clever in ways that a contracts professor can only envy.)

Yet a wide range of companies, and a band of good souls, have now joined together to attack the Google settlement. Some charge antitrust violations. Some fear that Google will collect information about who reads what—violating reader privacy. And some just love the chance to battle this decade's digital giant (including last decade's digital giant, Microsoft). The main thrust in almost all of these attacks, however, misses the real reason to be concerned about the future that this settlement will build. For the problem here is not just antitrust; it is not just privacy; it is not even the power that this (enormously burdensome) free library will give this already dominant Internet company. Indeed, the problem with the Google settlement is not the settlement. It is the environment for culture that the settlement will cement.

1. "Google Book Search and the Future of Books in Cyberspace"
2. The Google Books Settlement and the Future of Information Access Conference
3. Justice Department Sends Civil Investigative Demands to Google about Google Book Search Settlement
4. “Deal or No Deal: What If the Google Settlement Fails?”
5. Justice Department Launches Antitrust Investigation into Google Book Search Settlement

Here's an excerpt:

Many museums and art libraries have digitized their collections of artworks. Digital imaging capabilities represent a significant development in the academic study of art, and they enhance the availability of art images to the public at large. The possible uses of these images are likewise broad. Many of these uses, however, are potentially defined by copyright law or by license agreements imposed by some museums and libraries that attempt to define allowable uses. Often, these terms and conditions will mean that an online image is not truly available for many purposes, including publication in the context of research or simple enjoyment. Not only do these terms and conditions restrict uses, they also have dubious legal standing after the Bridgeman case. This paper examines the legal premises behind claiming copyright in art images and the ability to impose license restrictions on their use.

This paper is one outcome of a study of museum licensing practices funded by The Samuel H. Kress Foundation. This paper is principally an introduction to the relevant law in the United States and a survey of examples of museum licenses. The project is in its early stages, with the expectation that later studies will expand on this introduction and provide greater analysis of the legal complications of copyright, the public domain, and the reach of license agreements as a means for controlling the use of artwork and potentially any other works, whether or not they fall within the scope of copyright protection.

1. "Examining Law Journal Publication Agreements for Copyright Transfers and Self-Archiving Rights"
2. "Shrinking the Commons: Termination of Copyright Licenses and Transfers for the Benefit of the Public"
3. An Evaluation of Private Foundation Copyright Licensing Policies, Practices and Opportunities
4. ARL Board Passes Resolution against Nondisclosure or Confidentiality Clauses in Publisher/Vendor Agreements