Thanks for you comment and welcome to my blog.

Google certainly is a wonderfully innovative company, and although copywrite holders may have legitimate concerns, the public benefit which will be derived from the project will no doubt be huge.

Certainly, I have no doubt that copyright holders do have genuine concerns, and Google does have a responsibility to provide a simple and easy process for you to claim your rights.

You are right in saying that your digital rights should not belong to Google. As an author, you have the rights to determine how your work is distributed for as long as the publication is subject to copyright – in the digital world as well as in the offline world. However, I don’t think that Google is trying to challenge that in any way. For one thing, even under the recent settlement in America Google does not (at least this is how I understand it) have any form of exclusive right to your book in digital form at all, and even if you participate in the revenue sharing program, you as an author would still be free from a legal standpoint to market your own work online or license rivals of Google to do so. And you can always have your publication removed from the database if you so wish.

That said, Google does have a responsibility to make the process for authors to claim their rights a simple and easy one. You should not have to jump through hoops to claim your rights.

Yes, I would imagine that the industry structure associated with books in electronic form will take some time to sort itself out, and that things could be a little messy in this respect over the next few years.

Hopefully, you are right in relation to your last point about books in all languages becoming more widely available. Projects like Google’s certainly help to move things forward.

Merryl,

Yep, not an easy issue, and as you say, Google has done it’s best to ensure that it’s project does not unduly harm the legitimate interests of authors or publishers.

I certainly would not dispute that owners have a right to control, to a reasonable extent, the manner and ways in which their works are distributed and used, especially by gigantic corporations.

With regard to Google Books, any copyright holder who does not want their books used in this way can simply have their book removed on request, which I think is more than reasonable. And whilst some copyright holders may still be unhappy, I think Google has struck an appropriate balance between respecting copyright holder rights without unduly hindering its own capacity to take advantage of what I see as a very positive innovation.