A comment posted below expresses skepticism about my assertion that under the Google Book Settlement authors of out-of-print books are NOT entitled to 100% of the 63% of revenues Google realizes from sales of the book’s scans.

I have participated in two conference calls with the Authors Guild (the controlling authority in the settlement for authors and publishers), in one of which a Google lawyer participated. In the first of these conference calls I asked about my dissertation, which appears to have been scanned by Google, because it was on file at the University of Michigan Library. In the second call, I asked about my access to records of Google sales for my out-of-print books (to which I own the copyrights, but not the ISBN).

Dissertations

The Authors Guild assured me that my dissertation 1) would not appear in Google Book Search, even though it is clearly listed in the Google settlement database, and 2) no dissertations are covered by the settlement because they are not considered to be “published.”

I have made a “claim” to authorship of my dissertation at the settlement website, even though supposedly I am not included in the database. I also understand that my dissertation is not published. Nonetheless, a decade ago a private party licensed the University of Michigan’s dissertations and was reselling my dissertation, without paying me anything. I had to write to the company’s lawyers to have my dissertation dropped from their catalog of dissertations for sale. (At the moment, I would rather not dig around in my archives to find the correspondence, and instead I ask you to believe me.)

Out-of-Print, but Copyrighted Works

My publisher has listed my books (although I now have the copyrights) on Google Book Search: http://books.google.com/books?id=ddEFyLv4_fkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Mambretti#v=onepage&q=&f=false and http://books.google.com/books?id=qbp9JTlZKR0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Mambretti#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Once the settlement is implemented, Google will send 63% of the proceeds to my publisher, who has the responsibility of sending me my half. This is a fact. I cannot even obtain a report from Google of sales, even though my publisher no longer has any rights to my books. In the second phone call, I specifically asked for a copy of the report, and here is what the Google lawyer/Authors Guild lawyer told and then sent me in an email, which I still have:

Dear Ms. Mambretti:
You cannot obtain this same information with respect to user access of the content currently available at Google.com.  That content isn't available because of the settlement.  It's there because your publisher has authorized display of a limited number of pages of your book through a contractual agreement with Google.  The publisher has access to that information as a result of that contract.
Sincerely,
The Authors Guild

Please Tweet/reTweet this post if you are also in my situation. The Authors Guild ought to be renamed the Publishers Guild (and the “guild” word is exactly as nasty as I said it was in the previous post).