Publishing House Research - James Billington

Steve Greechie's Interview with Pat Schroeder
President, Association of American Publishers
December 17th, 2008

SG: Are you pleased that the PRO IP Act has been signed?

PS: I am. I think that it gives intellectual property a lot more visibility - in any administration. One of the things that you've seen through this whole stimulus and bailout discussion going on is that everybody is so focused on manufacturing and old world issues. But when you really look at where America competes the best, and where so much of our economy is, it's with intellectual property. We're still looking at the world through 19th century eyes - and that just isn't gonna work.
It's because of how the government keeps it statistics. For example, in Washington DC, the Washington Post is seen as a manufacturing entity - which it isn't. It's a content and IP industry. They don't own paper mills, and they don't own printing presses, and yet so many people think publishing equals printing.

SG: Right… they're using the old SIC Codes.

PS: Exactly. Hopefully, this new IP person will be able to intervene in a lot of negotiations and remind people how important IP is to our economy. That's where the bulk of white-collar jobs are that are left in this economy.

SG: Does the Act give the user a fair shake? Can we expect that the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator will consider the needs of the user?

PS: Sure. The law's the same - it doesn't change the law. It just says that you can't go around telling people "Buy this equipment because you can copy everything that's out there without dealing with the rights holder."

SG: But he can have no effect on international issues, on international pirating - is that right?

PS: Well, the US is a big player in all of those international organizations. We're one of the biggest funders of the WTO because they put a tax on copyrights here, and they go to fund it. We have more files here than anywhere else because we've got a very efficient system. And it doesn't cost as much as the UK or the EU does to file. So our voice certainly has some influence.

SG: To talk about orphan works… Would you like to see the Shawn Bentley Act [Shawn Bentley Orphan Work Act of 2008] passed next year?

PS: Well, we were pushing very hard to get one this year, actually… We've been working with the libraries and everybody to get a good Orphan Works Bill out there. We're very disappointed it didn't get through, but we'll keep working on it because we think it is very critical.

SG: A lot of the controversy has been around the term "diligent effort". Will that effort be too expensive for the potential use?

PS: No, I don't think so. There will be a few places that people can go and look - there's the CCC [Copyright Clearance Center], and our registry under Google. I think that's gonna be considered diligent. It's not like you're supposed to look under bushel baskets and things. This'll be interpreted by courts, but, you know, every piece of legislation has language like that. You can't say "The search must include the following." Diligent means what a reasonable person thinks you would do. It's very standard language.

SG: You mentioned the book registry. That resulted from the Google book search copyright suit. How's that coming along? Has the registry begun?

PS: It's in the formation stages. It needs to be up and running - hopefully - this summer, when - hopefully - the court approves the final settlement. At that point, it will have the job of identifying the rights holders and making sure they get what's due to them - then, on a going forward basis, managing this whole project.
Now, the good thing that many people don't understand about the registry is that it will be available to anyone else who wants to do any kind of a project. This is not a Google-specific registry. It will be run by the Author's Guild and AAP [Association of American Publishers], indirectly. We will appoint people on it. It'll be independent of us, but it will be half authors and half publishers. They will be authorized to cut deals for rights holders with anybody that wants to come in. It will be a marvelous place - a central location where people can find out who they should be dealing with. It'll be as automated as possible, as easy, as few clicks - all those good things. We plan to make it state of the art.
Most of our publishers are very efficient in doing it, but there's always somebody who's keeping their stuff in a shoe box, still. And of course, whenever you appear in Congress or a court, someone pulls that example - and the whole group is tarnished. Well, this is gonna take care of that.

SG: These are tasks that were done previously by the LOC Copyright Department and organizations like Copyright Clearance Center.

PS: Right… and they will still be around. Rights holders will have multiple options as to where to go, I guess. We'll see how that all shapes out.

SG: You know, the press makes it sound like everyone was happy with that settlement. Is that true?

PS: Well, I think so. I think it was the biggest book deal in America. I come from a state where you've got lots and lots of little towns. The fact that every single library in those little towns is gonna get a free portal to over seven million books at Stanford, University of California and University of Michigan is pretty phenomenal. It's just phenomenal! It's a real feather in the cap of the rights holders and Google. They all agreed "Okay, we would like to make some money on these books, but we want to also make sure there's at least on place everywhere that's considered a public library where people can go and get this."

SG: As I understand it, Google paid a sizable sum to the plaintiffs - is that right?

PS: Rights holders who have copyright - obviously not the public domain, that's not a problem - will get $60 for the wrongful act of copying a book without permission. Then the rights holder has the right to either pull their works out of this corpus or leave them in the corpus.
And then the rights holder has the option to do several things. If somebody wants to download some book that's out-of-print and print it out, they can say "Anybody can do that for ten dollars" - and then the registry can collect that money and give it to them. Or they can say "No, nobody can do that." Or they can say "We want $15." Or they can say "The registry can set the price. I don't wanna get into it." Whatever…
The other thing they can do is to leave it in for licensing agreements. They will get paid a percentage of usage under the licensing - however that gets worked out by the registry.

SG: So now Google and the publishers will be working together.

PS: They will be working together. The rights holders will be able to make money on books that have been out-of-print and they aren't making any money on now.
And let's not forget we're all users. People never think we think of the users but we do. There will not be a person in America near a public library that won't have free access to this entire body of work. I think that's a very nicely balanced formula. We've really tried very hard to say "What is reasonable? What is fair? What is balanced?"
Of course, there will be people saying "Well, one terminal's not enough." And other people saying "Well, everything should be free!" But the copyright law does say rights holders have some rights until their copyright term is up. So to me, this is balanced. This is fair.

Interviews