Infolink Librarians

The Free Software Foundation was among those that filed an objection, this one focused on licensing issues. Because of the nature of the suit, the settlement focused on copyrighted works, but the works scanned by Google may (now, or in the future) include those covered by the FSF's GNU Free Document License. 

"If the Settlement is approved, Google will be authorized to continue to digitize, sell and partially display books without complying with the 'copyleft' and 'share alike' license terms which are essential to the freedom granted by these licenses."

But it's not just US copyright law that's being trampled on, according to Consumer Watchdog; the settlement also conflicts with international copyright agreements.

The group isn't alone in thinking that; European publishers have been leery of the deal, and action shifted to Brussels this week, where the European Commission has been holding hearings on the settlement.

Other Commissioners seem determined to use it as a launching point for a more general attempt to deal with related issues, like the modernization of copyright law to handle digital content and the digitization of works in European libraries

According to various reports, two countries (France and Germany) have already decided that they will oppose the deal.

Google seems to have come to the hearings well prepared, with some significant concessions to hand to the Commission: books that are out of print in the US but still published in Europe won't be licensed to the Books Rights Registry. The Registry would also pick up two European representatives, one an author, one a publisher.

At the same time, the Commissioners note that only one percent of the works in European libraries have been digitized to date, leaving the continent at risk of lagging in an effort that ultimate should improve public access to significant cultural material.

One of those consumer interests is undoubtedly privacy, given the potentially personal nature of a person's reading habits.

ere, the story jumps back to this side of the Atlantic, where the US' Federal Trade Commission has been hashing out privacy issues with Google

Although nothing formal has been decided yet, Google issued a formal privacy policy and FAQ that lays out the privacy protections it affords users of its current book service, and details the features that will be used for book sales if the settlement is approved. Basically, Google will keep personal information in-house, and only share information, such as lists of favorite books, if a user specifically opts in.

But, if Google was hoping to keep privacy issues separate from the objections to the book settlement, a coalition of privacy advocates had an unpleasant surprise for it. The ACLU and EFF organized a coalition of authors that have dealt with privacy concerns to file a brief as members of the class of rightsholders involved in the settlement.

The gist of the complaint is that the settlement will leave Google in a position where it could track users' reading habits, but does nothing to ensure that it won't. "The Settlement includes no limitations on collection and use of reader information and no privacy standards for retention, modification, deletion or disclosure of that information to third parties or the government," the filing reads.

The filing actually was modified in time to reflect Google's privacy policy statement, and it notes that there's nothing binding about these rules; Google can change them at will in the future. Obviously, the coalition would like to see something binding written into the agreement.

It's obvious that the concerns about, and outright resistance to, the original settlement have been extensive, and Google is willing to make some significant concessions to try to get the deal to go through. What's less obvious is whether these concessions will be formally made part of the legal settlement and, if so, whether outside parties will have another opportunity to comment on the revisions. The scheduled decision is now less than a month away, but it looks like it's going to be an extremely busy month for everyone involved.