“Although I am persuaded that the parties are seeking in good faith to use this class action to create an effective and beneficial marketplace for digital books, I am troubled in several respects,” Chin wrote. He brought up several key issues that seemed to point a way toward potential resolution of the agreement, including moving the issue of orphan works and international copyright issues to Congress, privacy concerns and inverting the structure of the ASA so authors interested in participating could opt in, rather than being included by default.

For out-of print books, this could be a good plan for exposure to the world. However, I’m with the judge in his caution. Copyright is held by the author unless granted to another. Are we to believe that the serious issues cited by the judge were fully explored by Google and those claiming to represent authors all over the globe? Authors should have the right to opt their individual works in. Consumers may not care about creative license – especially when a work is available on the web. But the world will lose new artistic creations when authors, artists, illustrators, song writers, music artists, and other creators lose the solid protections of copyright. Go research the music industry on this one. You’ll likely get an earful and it won’t be the tune you wanted.

“Although I am persuaded that the parties are seeking in good faith to use this class action to create an effective and beneficial marketplace for digital books, I am troubled in several respects,” Chin wrote. He brought up several key issues that seemed to point a way toward potential resolution of the agreement, including moving the issue of orphan works and international copyright issues to Congress, privacy concerns and inverting the structure of the ASA so authors interested in participating could opt in, rather than being included by default.

For out-of print books, this could be a good plan for exposure to the world. However, I’m with the judge in his caution. Copyright is held by the author unless granted to another. Are we to believe that the serious issues cited by the judge were fully explored by Google and those claiming to represent authors all over the globe? Authors should have the right to opt their individual works in. Consumers may not care about creative license – especially when a work is available on the web. But the world will lose new artistic creations when authors, artists, illustrators, song writers, music artists, and other creators lose the solid protections of copyright. Go research the music industry on this one. You’ll likely get an earful and it won’t be the tune you wanted.