It occurs to me now that quite a few lawyers in this country write books. One would expect such authors to care a great deal about copyrights. But apparently they are too busy with their law careers to see writing as a profession, too.

John Grisham was once a lawyer who now makes a living from writing. Maybe Mr. Grisham cares about copyrights.

Lawyer-authors, I beg you to stop and think about who really controls your books.

I’m not a copyright lawyer, but I am a copyright holder.

I have many, many years of experience with copyright law. Even my graduate-school education included studying the origins of English and American copyright law. So, I am qualified to state unequivocally that all copyright law is designed to protect publishers, not authors.

Once any author, including a lawyer who writes a thriller, signs away a portion of his copyrights to a publisher he might as well kiss his sweet book goodbye.

Google Book Settlement

If you are a lawyer and if you are also an author you must be aware of the Google Book Settlement. If not, you should immediately “Google” it.

Briefly:

As a result of a contract between the University of Michigan Library and Google several years ago, almost every book that has ever been published (and, as I know from personal experience, every thesis and dissertation) has been scanned as images by Google for posting on the web. When the Authors Guild (of which I am a member) found out, they sued Google supposedly on the behalf of the authors.

A court decided that what Google did is OK (!) so long as Google pays authors and publishers about 35% of their proceeds, because 35% is so much higher than the measly royalties authors usually get. Of course, the court did not say what price Google must charge their customers. Nor did the court say that Google must guarantee the quality and accuracy of their scans. Nor did the court say that the original scans constituted an unauthorized copy of copyrighted works.

The sole right an author has under the settlement is to “opt out.” And, believe me, you really have no choice, because you would be an idiot to opt out of anything Google promotes. The only reason you would opt out is that you are so ashamed of what you wrote that you do not want anyone to read it in the future.

Recently the Library of Congress Copyright Office called on Congress to hold hearings on this settlement, stating that they believed the settlement was a fundamental assault on U.S. Copyright law.

Last week the House Committee on the Judiciary heard from the LOC lawyer, Marybeth Peters.

But yesterday I received an email bulletin from the Authors Guild stating:

“Judge Denny Chin granted the motion of authors and publishers to adjourn the fairness hearing scheduled for October 7th. While noting that the current settlement raises significant issues, Judge Chin says that ‘the proposed settlement would offer many benefits to society, as recognized by supporters of the settlement as well as DOJ. ... It would appear that if a fair and reasonable settlement can be struck, the public would benefit.’"

I cannot find the words to express my horror.

OK, so since when could a court tell Congress not to hold hearings?

“Benefits to Society”

Huh? So now society has a right to read what I write simply because at some time in the past I signed a contract with a publisher who subsequently let the book go out of print and, consequently, let the contract expire and let my copyrights return to me. But now that I own the copyrights, the publisher can still permit a third party to copy my book in their typeset form and sell it—so long as the publisher gets a cut of the proceeds?

It’s called “copy” rights for a reason, folks.

To paraphrase Adlai Stevenson, I propose the following as the Authors Guild’s new slogan:

“Writers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your rights!”