The Small Press Poetry Revolution by Travis Nichols

Travis Nichols
Editor at the Poetry Foundation
Posted: March 4, 2010 12:11 PM

Travis Nichols in today's Huffington Post on

The Small Press Poetry Revolution

GET A JOB: Fence Seeks Poetry Editor to Fill Open Spot

Fence is looking for a new poetry editor to join its current three editors (Katy Lederer, Charles Valle, Max Winter), who all report to editor Rebecca Wolff. Responsibilities include: Vetting approximately 500 submissions per year through an electronic submissions manager; participating in group editorial meetings (online and/or in person); sporadic soliciting; correspondence with accepted poets and with Fence management. This position is unpaid. A two-year commitment is required. Interested parties should send a six-page writing sample, resume, and letter of interest to associate editor Colie Collen at: iwannabeyourpoetryeditor@gmail.com. Women and persons of color are strongly encouraged to apply.

SPD Authors: Help!

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Opening the Book

Peter Brantley & Gary Reback

One of the most significant developments in the history of publishing could be co-opted by the settlement of a class action lawsuit that creates an unprecedented monopoly and price fixing cartel. Just as Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press more than 700 years ago ushered in a new era of knowledge sharing, the mass digitization of books promises to revolutionize how we read and discover books. But a digital library controlled by a single company and small group of publishers would inevitably lead to higher prices and subpar service for consumers, libraries, scholars, and students.

A proposed settlement to a class action lawsuit settlement among Google, the Association of American Publishers (AAP), and the Authors’ Guild threatens to monopolize the access to and distribution and pricing of the largest digital database of books in the world, cornering much of the value of book digitization and reserving it to the private parties that have negotiated what is essentially both a new policy and a business model governing access to this material without input from appropriate government officials or the public. This is unacceptable.

Unlike the proposed settlement, there are proper, fair ways to make the promised digital future for books a reality. Today, we are launching the Open Book Alliance to insist that any mass book digitization and distribution effort be open and competitive. It must be undertaken in the open, grounded in sound public policy, and mindful of the need to promote long-term benefits for consumers rather than isolated commercial interests.

A wide range of professional, academic, and corporate organizations have significant concerns about the settlement proposal. True, we all fundamentally support the effort to expand the availability of knowledge through the digitization of books. But the proposed settlement, in substance and process, is not the way to do it.

By bringing together diverse organizations such as Amazon, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, the Internet Archive, Microsoft, the New York Library Association, Small Press Distribution, the Special Libraries Association, and Yahoo!, the Open Book Alliance will counter the special deal the proposed settlement creates for Google and the parties that have agreed to its proposed settlement, and will promote fair and flexible solutions aimed at achieving a more robust and open system.

Many startling challenges to copyright and competition policy lie buried in the settlement’s 300+ pages. The Open Book Alliance will inform policymakers and the public about the serious legal, competitive, and policy issues in the settlement proposal, including:

• The settlement is bad for consumers and book-lovers – It deliberately thwarts competition in the emerging e-books market, creating a digital book monopoly that will inevitably lead to fewer choices and higher prices for consumers of digital books. It would allow a group of erstwhile competitors to collectively set prices and leave Google as the only company with a the right to copy, display or sell digital versions of orphan works (books for which authors or rights holders cannot be identified or located). Consumers would be better served by a competitive market for digital books that is available to everyone on non-discriminatory terms. The settlement also contains no privacy commitments to ensure that Google doesn’t use its awareness of what books people are reading to make unfair profit, or doesn’t share its intimate knowledge with commercial interests or governments. Finally, the settlement is carefully structured to ensure that all of the digital content will be available to Google and Google’s search engine. This will enhance and reinforce Google’s already dominant market power in the internet search market while making the digital books less available and less findable by users of other search engines.

• The settlement is bad for libraries and schools: While a handful of large and well-funded university libraries participated in the Google book-scanning effort, many other educational institutions and libraries will be forced to pay monopoly prices for access to a wide swath of knowledge, straining already-stretched budgets and creating a system of haves and have-nots in our nation’s education system. Community libraries would get at a single terminal to Google’s private book database, and libraries serving our nation’s children in K-12 schools would get absolutely nothing. The settlement widens the digital divide by limiting access to digital books in financially hard-hit communities that have budget-constrained libraries.

• The settlement is bad for authors and small publishers: Unless they act to opt out of the proposed settlement by Google’s deadline, authors and other writers lose rights to the fruits of their labor—a future in which they have no negotiating rights for the value of their work. Moreover, the proposed settlement would line the pockets of a handful of lawyers, who collectively would receive more than $45 million, at the expense of millions of authors and small publishers upon whose creativity and hard work the private book monopoly would be built.

• The settlement sets a dangerous and unprecedented process precedent. The proposed settlement far exceeds the bounds of a typical legal settlement. It privatizes important copyright and public policy decisions. It abuses class action procedure to create an exclusive joint venture between Google, AAP and the Authors’ Guild, strengthening Google’s dominance in search and search advertising and creating a private monopoly for the sale of digitized books.

If you are interested in joining the Open Book Alliance or if you are interested in receiving regular updates on this important issue, contact us through our Web site. And stay tuned to this space for more information as the Open Book Alliance fights to make the promise of digital books a reality that benefits all, not just a select few.

Preparing for the Bee-In &

SPD/CLMP Publisher Day

Jeffrey and Brent working hard



















Jeffrey, Brent & Laura in front of Hangar One sign (thanks to Craft Distillers for donation of delicious vodka for the Bee's Knees cocktail!) They really are in a hangar.



















Jeffrey and Mary Bisbee-Beek talk during Publisher Day at SPD

















Happy publishers, authors, students, publishing enthusiasts

news from the book world...

A message from Roy Blount Jr.:

A couple months after I became Authors Guild president in 2006, we met with Google to propose a settlement to our class-action lawsuit. The Guild had sued Google in September 2005, after Google struck deals with major university libraries to scan and copy millions of books in their collections. Many of these were older books in the public domain, but millions of others were still under copyright protection. Nick Taylor, then the president of the Guild, saw Google’s scanning as “a plain and brazen violation of copyright law.” Google countered that its digitizing of these books represented a “fair use” of the material. Our position was: The hell you say. Of such disagreements, lawsuits are made.

Our proposal to Google back in May 2006 was simple: while we don’t approve of your unauthorized scanning of our books and displaying snippets for profit, if you’re willing to do something far more ambitious and useful, and you’re willing to cut authors in for their fair share, then it would be our pleasure to work with you.

We’re happy to report that our proposal found a receptive audience at Google and at Association of American Publishers and the several publishing houses that had filed a separate lawsuit in October 2005 against Google. Reaching final agreement turned out to be not so simple, but today, after nearly two and a half years of negotiations, we’re joining with Google and the AAP and those publishers to announce the settlement of Authors Guild v. Google.

The settlement, which must be approved by a federal judge before it takes effect, includes money for now and the prospect of money for later. There’ll be at least $45 million for authors and publishers whose in-copyright books and other copyrighted texts have been scanned without permission. If your book was scanned and you own all the rights, you’ll get a small share of this, at least $60, depending on how many rightsholders file claims.

Far more interesting for most of us –- and the ambitious part of our proposal -- is the prospect for future revenues. Rightsholders will receive a share of revenues from institutional subscriptions to the collection of books made available through Google Book Search under the settlement, as well as from sales of online consumer access to the books. They will also be paid for printouts at public libraries, as well as for other uses.

The payments will flow through the Book Rights Registry, a new independent entity that can be thought of as the writers’ equivalent of ASCAP. Much as ASCAP tracks the uses of songs and collects royalties for songwriters and musicians, the Registry will serve the interests of authors and others who own the rights to books appearing online as a result of this settlement. The Registry will be controlled by a board of authors and publishers; as part of the settlement, Google will pay $34.5 million to get the Registry up and running, notify rightsholders of the settlement, and process claims.

Readers are also big winners under the settlement of Authors Guild v. Google. Readers will be able to browse from their own computers an enormous collection of books. We hope this will encourage some readers to buy full online access to some of the books. Readers wanting to view books online in their entirety for free need only reacquaint themselves with their participating local public library: every public library building is entitled to a free, view-only license to the collection. College students working on term papers will be able to point their computers to resources other than Wikipedia, if they’re so inclined: students at subscribing institutions will be able to read and print out any books in the collection.

We expect that millions of out-of-print books (and many in-print books) will be available through Google Book Search to readers, but we don’t know how many, since that depends partly on you. Participating rightsholders can choose to pull their books from this service with reasonable notice at any time and will retain substantial control over Google’s presentation and pricing of their books.

As with any class action, individual class members remain free to opt out of the settlement.

There are many, many more details, but I’ll leave those to the official notice. There’s also an official press release, edited to within an inch of its life and the settlement agreement itself. They’re linked below; be my guest.

Roy Blount Jr.
President
Authors Guild

October 28, 2008

Press Release
Class Notice
Settlement Agreement

Copyright 2008 Roy Blount Jr. Mr. Blount authorizes any recipient to forward and post this message in its entirety.