Google Book Settlement

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Terms Used in the Claim Form

Each of the following terms is used in the Claim Form. By clicking on a term where it appears in the Claim Form, you will be taken directly to the appropriate entry, below, or, you can scroll to the appropriate entry.


Account Type

When you create an account, you must check one of three buttons, identifying yourself as either an "Author, author's heir or successor," a "Publisher," or an "Agent claiming on behalf of one or more authors." The reason for this is that there are three different sets of claiming screens, each tailored to claiming authors, publishers or author's agents. If you are unsure about which button to check, read on.

The settlement affects two categories of copyright owners, the Author Sub-Class and the Publisher Sub-Class. The Author Sub-Class consists of authors and their heirs, successors and assigns. The Publisher Sub-Class consists of book or periodical publishing companies and their successors and assigns. If you are a self-publisher, i.e., an author who published your own books (even if under a corporate or other business form), then you should consider yourself a member of the Author Sub-Class and check the "Author, author's heir or successor" button. If you are claiming books as an agent on behalf of your clients, then you should check the third button, and you will be able to claim books and Inserts on their behalf. If you are neither a publishing company nor an author, but you believe that you own an author's copyright interest in a book or Insert (by inheritance, assignment or by any other means), then you should check the button next to "Author, author's heir or successor."

Author Sub-Class

The Author Sub-Class consists of members of the class who are authors, and their heirs, successors and assigns, as well as all other members of the class who are neither publishing companies nor their successors or assigns.

Book

A "Book" is a written or printed work that meets the following three conditions on or before January 5, 2009:

  • It was published or distributed to the public or made available on sheets of paper bound together in hard copy form for public access under the authorization of the work's U.S. copyright owner; and

  • If a “United States work,” it was registered with the U.S. Copyright Office, and if not a “United States work,” it was either registered with the U.S. Copyright Office or was published in Canada, the United Kingdom or Australia; and

  • It is subject to a U.S. copyright interest (either through ownership, joint ownership, or an exclusive license) implicated by a use authorized, or for which compensation could be payable, by the Settlement.

Cash Payment

"Cash Payments" are payments that Google will make for works it has digitized on or before May 5, 2009 as follows:

For Principal Works, Entire Inserts, and Partial Inserts that Google digitized on or before May 5, 2009, Google will pay at least US$60 per Principal Work, US$15 per Entire Insert, and US$5 per Partial Insert. If you are the only rightsholder of the Principal Work or Insert, then you will receive the entire Cash Payment for that work. If, however, other Rightsholders also have valid claims to the same Principal Work or Insert – for example, a claim by the publisher (if you are an author or heir), by the author (if you are a publisher), by your co-author or co-heir, or by the publisher of the paperback edition of a book (if you are the publisher of the hard back edition) – then the Cash Payment may need to be shared according to the Plan of Allocation and the Author-Publisher Procedures.

Only one Cash Payment will be made per Principal Work, Entire Insert or Partial Insert regardless of the number of times that Google has digitized the Principal Work or Insert and regardless of the number of books in which the Principal Work or Insert appears. If, for example, a paperback edition of a book digitized by Google does not contain additional or different copyrightable expression as compared to a hard cover edition digitized by Google that contains the same Principal Work, only one Cash Payment for the Principal Work will be made even if the soft cover and hard cover editions have different ISBNs.

If a Cash Payment is made for a book, then no additional Cash Payment will be made for any portions of the book that are used as Inserts. Therefore, a rightsholder may claim a Cash Payment either for the Principal Work or for any part of the Principal Work that is Protected Expression that constitutes an Entire Insert or Partial Insert in any other book, but not both.

To receive a Cash Payment, you must, on or before March 31, 2011 (extended from January 5, 2010), claim an eligible book or Insert using the Claim Form. Other than filing the Claim Form, there is nothing you need to do at this time.

Commercial Availability

A book is Commercially Available if, at the time in question, the book is offered for sale new by a seller anywhere in the world to a buyer in the United States, the UK, Canada or Australia.

If a book is designated as Commercially Available then Google will not be authorized to make any Display Uses of the book unless a rightsholder of the book gives express permission to do so. If a book is designated as not Commercially Available, then Google will be able to make all Display Uses of the book unless a rightsholder of the book instructs Google to exclude the book from one or more Display Uses.

Confident/Highly Confident

Confident means that you are confident that rights in the book have not reverted to the author (based, e.g., on the type of book or type of contract for the book). Books that were published in categories or by imprints that generally did not have reversions, but as to which you may not be reviewing individual book contracts but as to which you are nevertheless confident that rights have not reverted, may be claimed in this category. Books claimed using this assertion of rights are not eligible for a Cash Payment, and you cannot remove these books without becoming "highly confident", but you can exclude them from any Display Use (for good cause articulated, in the case of not Commercially Available Books). The challenge procedures set forth in Section 13.2(c) of the Amended Settlement Agreement allowing Google to directly challenge claims of books do not apply to claims made using this assertion of rights.

Highly Confident means that you are highly confident that rights in the book have not reverted to the author (based, e.g., on the individual book or contract for the book). If you review a book's publishing contract and conclude, after such review, that no reversion was possible for that book, you are likely to be highly confident that you have rights in the book. If you keep contract files which routinely contain any reversion notices and confirmations, and the file for a specific title contains no such notices or confirmations, you also are likely to be highly confident that rights to any in-print books have not reverted to the author. If you maintain a rights database that is regularly updated and accurate, if such database shows you hold rights in the book, then you are likely to be highly confident that it has not reverted.

If you assert that you are highly confident that rights in the book have not reverted, that claim could be subject to challenge by Google under certain circumstances. Provided that you complete a Claim Form as required, including providing all required attestations, in a challenge to your claims, Google will bear the burden of providing clear and convincing evidence that a reasonable number of your claims, within a set of claims identified by Google, are invalid. (A "set of claims," means claims of books published under an imprint that are similar in that Google is challenging the claims on the same grounds and that the books share other characteristics, such as genre and date of publication.) If Google prevails, then you will bear the burden of proving the validity of all other claims within such set.

The procedures for such challenges are set forth more fully in Section 13.2(c) of the Amended Settlement Agreement.

Display Uses

Google is authorized under the Amended Settlement to make "Display Uses" of books that are not Commercially Available and, upon the express authorization of rightsholders, of Commercially Available books. The current Display Uses are all limited to uses in the United States and include:

  1. Institutional Subscriptions: Educational, government and corporate institutions will be able to purchase time-limited subscriptions (e.g., by semester or by year) for their students and employees to access the full contents of the institutional subscription database. Rightsholders will receive revenue from such subscriptions.

  2. Consumer Purchases: Individual users will be able to purchase the right to access books online. Rightsholders will receive revenue from such purchases.

    • Consumer Purchase Pricing: Rightsholders have two options under the Amended Settlement for setting the sale price of their books sold for Consumer Purchase: they can set the price themselves in U.S. dollars (Specified Pricing) or they can allow Google to set the price based on a multi-factor formula that is designed to maximize revenues for the sale of the book (the "Settlement-Controlled Price").

  3. Public Access Service: Google will provide, on request, a "Public Access Service" for free through a computer terminal at each public library building and through an agreed number of computer terminals at non-profit colleges and universities located in the United States. The Public Access Service will provide the same access to books as Google offers in the institutional subscriptions, except that users will not be able to copy/paste or annotate any portions of a book.

  4. Preview Use: In response to a user's search, Google may allow the user to view limited portions of a book, in a manner designed to serve as a marketing tool to sell the book for Consumer Purchase or otherwise. Rightsholders will receive advertising revenues from advertisements placed on Preview Use pages for a book. There are three types of Preview Uses, and at any time, rightsholders of a book may choose among the three types of Preview Use listed below for each of their books.

    • Standard Preview: When a user searches for a term within a book, Google may display up to 20% of the pages of the book, but no more than 5 adjacent pages at a time. For fiction books, Google will block the final 5% of the book, or a minimum of the final 15 pages. For fiction books, Google may also display up to 5% of the pages of the book, or up to 15 pages, whichever is less, adjacent to the user's search term. Standard Preview is the default Preview Use setting and, where Preview Use is authorized, will be offered for most books unless the rightsholder of the book chooses Fixed Preview or Continuous Preview.

    • Fixed Preview: Google may display up to 10% of the pages of a book. The pages displayed to all users are the same, and do not vary by user or depend on a user's search. Google will choose the pages to be displayed in Fixed Preview unless the Registry developed a mechanism to allow rightsholders of books to select the pages. Where Preview Use is authorized, Fixed Preview is the default setting for the following types of books: dictionaries, drug reference guides; encyclopedias; price/buyer guides; quotation books; test preparation/certification guides; and thesauri.

    • Continuous Preview: If a rightsholder selects Continuous Preview, Google may display up to 10% of the pages of a book without being subject to the adjacent page limitation (no more than 5 adjacent pages) of Standard Preview.


  5. Snippet Displays: In response to a user's search, Google may display about three or four lines of text from a book (a "snippet"), with up to three snippets per user for that Book. Rightsholders are expected to receive advertising revenues from advertisements placed on web pages devoted to a single book that display one or more snippets from that book.

  6. Display of Bibliographic Pages (Front Matter Display): Google may display to users a book's title page, copyright page, table of contents, and index.

  7. Advertising: Google is authorized under the settlement to include advertisements on Preview Use pages and on web pages dedicated to a single book, including pages displaying Snippets, bibliographical information (Front Matter Display), and search results from a user's search performed within a single book. Rightsholders of books will earn revenues from such advertisements. Google may also place advertisements on other Google products and services (e.g., search result pages, Google Maps), but rightsholders of books will not earn revenues from those advertisements.

    For each of their books, rightsholders have the right to direct Google to exclude all advertising on any web pages dedicated to that single book.

  8. Book Annotation Sharing: Google is authorized under the settlement to allow users to make Book Annotations for the user's own personal use and to share those Book Annotations with a limited number of other users, provided that: (1) Book Annotations may not shared with the general public; (2) Book Annotations may not be displayed to other users unless those other users have the right to view the book; (3) Book Annotations are only accessible to users who have actively selected the feature or who are participating in a group such as a class for which this feature has been selected; (4) for Consumer Purchase, the user may only share the Book Annotations with 25 individuals or less who are identified; and (5) for Institutional Subscriptions, the user may only share the Book Annotations with other users of the Institutional Subscription who are either instructors and students in a course or employees on a discrete work project.

    Rightsholders of books have the right to exclude their books from this Book Annotation Sharing feature.

Entire Insert

Entire Insert means an Insert that is an entire work, including forewords, afterwords, introductions, entire works included in anthologies, and entire poems, short stories, song lyrics or essays.

Hosted Version

"Hosted Versions" of books are versions that, upon request of the rightsholder, Google will provide (i.e., "host") on the rightsholder's website for the rightsholder to display, sell or make any other uses. The hosted version will contain the "look and feel" of the rightsholder's website, and will contain minimal Google branding, which branding may be tailored by the rightsholder upon the rightsholder's request.

Images (Pictorial Works)

Google is authorized under the settlement to display images (pictorial works) in a book only if one or more rightsholder of the book owns a copyright in the images. Rightsholder can state on the Manage Books page whether they own the rights in such images.

Insert

Content from one source is an "Insert" if it meets all of the following conditions:

  • It must be text; or tables, charts, graphs that are not pictorial works; and

  • It must be contained in a Book, government work or public domain book that was published on or before January 5, 2009; and

  • It must be protected by a U.S. copyright where the U.S. copyright interest in the Insert is held by someone other than a Rightsholder of the Book's "Principal Work." (For example, if you own rights in a poem that is contained in a Book for which you also hold a U.S. copyright interest, then your poem, as it appears in your Book, is not an Insert; however, it would be an Insert if the poem is contained in a Book for which someone else holds the U.S. copyright interest); and

  • It must have been registered – either alone or as part of another work – with the U.S. Copyright Office on or before January 5, 2009, UNLESS the Insert or that other work is not a "United States work," in which case such registration is not required.

Manage

Once you have claimed your books and Inserts, we will ask you to go to a form that enables you to "manage" them by stating how you want Google to use them. You may manage your books and Inserts by, for example, indicating that you want Books removed, or that you want to exclude Books or Inserts from one or more Display Uses or alternatively include Books or Inserts in one or more Display Uses. Additional options for managing books and Inserts are available under the settlement. You will be notified you when you will be able to further manage your books and Inserts.

Online

If material is available online, that means it is available over the Internet or other data or communication network, with or without caching, through a browser or other computer program used for accessing sites or information on a network.

Opt Out

If you opt out, you will not be included in the settlement, you will not receive the benefits conferred by the settlement and you will retain the right to sue Google and the Participating Libraries. If you opt out of the settlement, you will not be eligible for a Cash Payment or to participate in any of the revenue models under the settlement, nor will the settlement's restrictions or obligations on Google or the Participating Libraries apply to your books or Inserts. If you checked the box on the Opt Out form requesting that Google not digitize books that you identified the Settlement Administrator will pass along your request to Google. Although Google has no obligation under the settlement to comply with such request, Google has advised the Settlement Administrator that its current policy is to voluntarily honor such requests and refrain from digitizing your books or, if they have already been digitized, refrain from displaying them. By opting out, you are not participating in the settlement, and are retaining all rights against Google and the Participating Libraries.

Partial Insert

Partial Insert means an Insert other than an Entire Insert but is independently protected expression under the Copyright Act.

Publisher Sub-Class

The Publisher Sub-Class consists of members of the Class that are Book or periodical publishing companies that own a U.S. copyright interest in an Insert or have published a Book, and their respective successors and assigns.

Remove

Rightsholders have the right to remove books from all Display Uses and Non-Display Uses that Google and the Fully Participating Libraries are entitled to make under the settlement. If you remove a book, the digital copies of it will not be accessible to Google or a Fully Participating Library other than on back-up tapes or other electronic back-up storage media. If you remove a book and you subsequently decide you want to include it in the settlement, there is no guarantee that the book will be included because it may need to be rescanned.

Revenues

Revenues will be earned from sales of institutional subscriptions to a books database, sales to consumers of online access to individual books, advertisements placed on web pages that are dedicated to a single book (e.g., displaying a page from a book), and printing fees. Google will pay the Registry, for distribution to the appropriate rightsholders, 63% of the revenues earned from those revenue models. In addition, books and Inserts that are not excluded by the rightsholder from the books database may be eligible for inclusion fees, which are described in the Plan of Allocation.

Reverted or Reversion

Where a book publishing contract provides for reversion of rights to the author, those rights revert to the author (or author's heirs or successors) in accordance with the contract terms, generally when the publisher is no longer publishing or distributing the Book commercially (i.e., the Book is out of print), and the author has taken the steps required under that contract to revert the rights in the Book after it has gone out of print.

If your Book was self-published or otherwise not the subject of a book publishing contract, then for purposes of the Claim Form you should consider the work "reverted."

Sub-Class

The settlement affects two categories of copyright owners, the Author Sub-Class and the Publisher Sub-Class. The Author Sub-Class consists of authors and their heirs, successors and assigns. The Publisher Sub-Class consists of book or periodical publishing companies and their successors and assigns. If you are a self-publisher, i.e., an author who published your own books (even if under a corporate or other business form), then you should consider yourself a member of the Author Sub-Class and check the "Author Sub-Class" button.

United States Works

A book is a United States work if it meets the definition of "United States work" under the U.S. Copyright Act. See 17 U.S.C. § 101. In general, a work is a United States work under the Copyright Act if it was first published in the United States; or was first published simultaneously in the United States and a treaty party (i.e., a country with which the United States has copyright relations) that has the same or longer term of protection as the United States; or was first published simultaneously in the United States and a foreign nation that was not a treaty party; or was first published in a foreign nation that was not a treaty party and all of the authors of the work are nationals, domiciliaries, or habitual residents of the Untied States. If you have questions about whether your book qualifies as a United States work, please consult counsel.

If your books are United States works and were not registered with the United States Copyright Office as of January 5, 2009, then those books are not covered by the Amended Settlement Agreement, and you would not be releasing any claims you may have against Google with respect to those books (i.e., you retain the right to sue Google for copyright infringement for those books).

Work-for-hire

"Work-for-hire" is a term used in United States copyright law. In United States book publishing, it refers to a work created by an author, under an agreement with his publisher, where the publisher is considered the "author" of the work. In addition, the term also refers to a work created by an employee in the course of his employment, in which case the U.S. copyright law treats the employer as the "author" of the work. In both situations, U.S. law provides that the individual who created the work has no copyright interest in it.

Because most books are not created on a work-for-hire basis, a publisher must affirmatively check a box on the publisher claim form to claim a book as a work-for-hire. Authors who created a book on a work-for-hire basis have no copyright interest in the work and, therefore, should not claim those particular works on the author claim form.

Many countries do not recognize the U.S. law concept of "work–for-hire." Publishers whose books are published in countries that do not recognize the concept should not indicate on their claim forms that such books are works-for-hire.

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