FSF Adds to Objections on Google Book Search Settlement

by Joe Brockmeier - Feb. 02, 2010Comments (0)

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has filed a new objection to the court about the amended Google Book Search settlement and has asked the court to reject the settlement unless it does a better job of addressing authors who use the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) and similar Free Software licenses for docs. According to the FSF, the proposed amendments to the settlement place an unfair burden on authors to ensure license compliance.

The settlement is a lot to plow through. It comes as a zip file with a main 173 page settlement agreement and 16 attachements, and a separate folder with the same files listing changes from the original settlement. Pity the folks at the FSF that had to sift through that mess. The short of it is that authors are expected to visit a settlement Web site and claim their works, and then opt out of the settlement.

The stated mission of organizing the world's information and making it "universally accessible and useful," is nice and all, but it's not Google's information to dish out as it wishes. In the case of GFLD'ed works, the authors expressly support spreading the information through their choice of license — but the book search doesn't respect their choice of license according to the FSF release:

Google would generally have permission to display and distribute these works without abiding by the requirements to pass the freedoms guaranteed under the GFDL on to Google Books readers. Authors who wanted to use the GFDL or another free license would be required to designate that license in a Registry -- and the Registry would determine which licenses could and could not be chosen.

Google seriously needs to re-think its book search methods. Requiring authors to opt-out, rather than asking their permission, is ridiculous. While I sympathize that finding and notifying each author would require a great deal of legwork, placing the burden on the copyright holder is unreasonable. If Google can't abide automatically by the terms of a license, such as the GFDL then it should withdraw the works from the book search. Google has the technology to automatically categorize works by license, so there's little excuse for the company to require authors to opt-out rather than asking them to opt-in.

The full text of the FSF objection is available as a PDF from the Free Software Foundation site. A fairness hearing will be held on February 18th.