There are hooks. The old 30% royalty still applies if your book doesn’t meet the terms Amazon specifies and you’ll also need to pay a download fee which varies by the size of your ebook file. According to the company’s announcement, to get the new 70% rate:

• Your book’s list price must be between US$2.99 and $9.99
• It must be at least 20% under the lowest print edition’s price
• It must be offered in all geographies for which you have rights

So to some extent, Amazon is paying for the higher royalty by saving itself from taking heavy discounts from its own margins. Still, for self-publishers and small publishers, it’s a useful improvement.

It looks like Amazon is trying to position itself better in anticipation of better deals from Apple’s forthcoming iSlate / iTablet and Google’s forthcoming Google Editions, both of which appear offer deals more in line with Amazon’s new option.

And in a further move to head off Apple, this New York Times story reports:

In its announcement Thursday, Amazon will say that it is letting programmers create what it calls active content — similar to applications — for the Kindle and keep 70 percent of the revenue from each sale after paying for wireless delivery costs.

Amazon will release a set of programming guidelines that other companies — including publishers of books and periodicals — can use to create and sell applications for the Kindle.

Until Amazon introduces more advanced models of the Kindle, developers will be limited by its slow-to-refresh black-and-white screen.

In the same story, the New York Times reports:

The move may also represent a shift in Amazon’s relationship with newspapers and magazines that make digital editions for the Kindle. Many executives at those organizations have expressed dissatisfaction with their 30 percent cut of subscription fees on the Kindle and lack of a direct relationship with those subscribers.

With a Kindle app store, those media companies will be able to sell more profitable Kindle applications, and present news that is updated throughout the day.

It’s aimed at the small publisher and self-publisher market with fairly minimal requirements. Here’s a summary of how it works.

1. You establish an Amazon account or use your existing account.
2. Add a book using a straighforward process that provides basic metadata, a description and cover image, lets you specify whether you want DRM applied or not, confirms that you have rights to the book (which can be limited to specified territories), and lets you set the retail price.
3. You upload a file of your book which Amazon converts into its own Kindle format. The formats that produce best results are MS Word, HTML or the PRC format. PRC is the old Palm format on which Amazon’s Mobipocket and Kindle (AZW) formats are based. Predictably, there’s no specific suggestion that ePub format would be useful, although you can still upload it, and Amazon specifically notes that PDF may lead to poor results.
4. You’re done.

It’s a simple way to get into the hottest ebook store on the planet. Amazon’s DTP agreement is also pretty straightforward although, as you’ll see below, is aimed more at the self-publishing market.

• You grant Amazon non-exclusive rights to sell worldwide (unless specifically restricted) and across all electronic media. You can terminate with five days notice.
• You receive a royalty of 35% of the list price you’ve set, subject to certain restrictions such as not being higher than the price the book is sold elsewhere. So Amazon keeps 65%. [Update 22 January 2010: Amazon offers a new 70% royalty option]. If you’re a self-publishing author, this is better than most standard book royalty deals—but much worse the 80% cut offered by sites such as Smashwords. For publishers, it’s a steep discount that’s more like the receipts they’d expect from a traditional print book distributor and their cut, of course, would need to be shared with the author on a typical 20-25% of net basis, ie the author would end up with about 7-9% of list. Amazon’s 65% cut is high by current digital standards and higher than the proposed 37% cut that Google would take through its Google Editions service scheduled for later this year. Google offers a two-tier deal, depending on whether books are sold directly by Google (Google keeps 37%) or through a retail partner (Google keeps 55%, allowing it to pass on a 45% discount to the retailer and keep the difference).
• If you’re a non-US business, your only payment option at the moment  is by cheque with a US$100 minimum balance.

Billed as “the world’s first touch-enabled read-along colour story book”, a feature of the system is that it highlights the text as it reads aloud, each word zooming out as it’s spoken. The reader can tap on any word to have it highlighted and spoken back or spelled.

It’s similar to the increasingly popular Scrollmotion system but with more sophisticated handling of the read-along text. The QBook also includes a puzzle, colouring and the ability to record your own dialogue.

Among the features listed by the company are:

• Personalize each book with ‘this book belongs to …
• Swipe-to-Read™ to highlight and playback the story at your own pace
• Touch-to-Hear™ individual words spoken
• Touch-to-Spell™ to hear the letters that spell each and every word
• Auto Play to enjoy the narration
• Use the iRead™ Function to read and record the story yourself and customize your book
• Use the Colour Palette to paint each page and save this to customize your book
• Choose the Easy/Hard Word Find puzzle to find words from the story
• Choose the Easy/Hard Memory Pairs game and match the picture card pairs
• Save your high scores and advance up the levels

There’s a free app demo version of a Penguin title, Seb’s Tail, as well as the full version for NZ$6.49 / US$4.99, the same price as the Milly Molly title. You’ll find the titles by searching the App Store for Kiwa Media.

The big event while I was absent was the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week and it delivered on its promise that eReaders and tablet devices would be the buzz at this year’s CES.

This New York Times story covers the deluge of devices announced for reading a surfing.

And this round-up story from E-Paper Central covers the main e-paper based ebook reader announcements well.

For the most part, it will be a few months before we’ll see availability of the new devices, and perhaps longer in international markets, especially if these devices take off with consumers and product shortages slow the international roll-outs. But it’s clear that consumers wanting to read ebooks are going to have plenty of choice.

But a couple of the big announcements happened outside of CES. Google got into the Android smartphone business with the launch of its Nexus One. And the already-overheated rumour mill about Apple’s forthcoming tablet device has gone into top gear with a plethora of stories appearing now that are picking a late January announcement and March ship date for what’s being billed as the iTablet or iSlate. The amount of coverage and detail now emerging makes this look increasingly likely. Another game-changing battle emerging, anyone?

The REDgroup owns Whitcoulls, Angus and Roberston and Borders in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore giving it a similar dominant position in this part of the world that Shortcovers’ owner Indigo Books has in the Canadian market. The service will offer 200,000 paid ebooks (30,000 expected in the downunder version) plus more than a million free ebooks.

Following the spin-off and new investment, Indigo’s share of the venture will be 58%. Its new partners are REDgroup, Borders Inc and Hong Kong conglomerate Cheung Kong whose subsidiaries include Hutchison Whampoa. Among its other areas, Hutchison is a major telecommunications provider.

Shortcovers/Kobo is an impressive platform, now complemented by an impressive line-up of partners. One of them, Borders, has just announced that it plans to develop its own ebook reader for the service though the service will maintain its position as a device-agnostic platform supporting many mobile devices, a definite strength.

The plan to launch an ebook store (or stores) in Australia and New Zealand will certainly add some sizzle to the REDgroup as it toys with a possible public listing and exit for its private equity owner, Pacific Equity Partners.

It’s very good news for the nascent digital publishing market downuder as the possibility of high profile retail channels opens up for local digital content. Given the Kindle’s arrival in Australia, and its (we presume) imminent arrival in New Zealand, consumers will be offered some enticing options.

In the press release, REDgroup retail group managing director David Fenlon said:

“… we’ll soon be able to offer our customers a broad selection of eBooks and other content for download via our websites. In particular, I’m pleased that we’ll be in a position to make local content available by working with Australian and New Zealand publishers and authors to enhance the Kobo range … Kobo’s content will be accessible from eReaders, iPhones, Blackberrys, Palm Pres, Androids and PCs, making the products very versatile.

It’s timely for another reason. It’s looking increasingly likely that CES 2010 (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas on January 7-10 will see a number of launches that will start to see more digital reading-friendly gadgets arriving to tempt consumers.

• Among the rumours, Dell will be launching an Android-based tablet.
• Start-up e-paper supplier PixelQi has confirmed it will be there. “We can now announce that the first units are going into specialized tablet devices with multi-touch … Pixel Qi will be at CES in Las Vegas in early January supporting our customers. We can’t yet announce with whom we will be showing but hope to shortly,” says CEO Mary-Lou Jepson.
• Plastic Logic will finally launch its business-oriented QUE e-reader, a much-praised device that might finally herald the arrival of the paperless office.
• There’s also some really interesting-looking stuff from smaller players in the show’s Ebook Techzone.
• And, of course, a slew of Android devices will be on their way, many no doubt seeing the first light of day at CES 2010.

Welcome to 2010, another Year of the Ebook.

[Update: 16 Dec, 11:47am. REDgroup which has Australian and New Zealand book chains A&R, Whitcoulls and Borders ANZ, is a minority investor in the new company formed for this initiative.  They expect to launch an ebook store using Kobo by May 2010. See story: Whitcoulls, Borders, A&R to launch ebook store by May 2010.

Also, Borders Inc is an investor and have announced an ebook store on the Borders.com site powered by Kobo. The broad geographical spread of the partners should be a big plus in sourcing content and dealing with territorial restrictions.]

Since it launched in February this year, the unit of Canadian bricks-and-mortar bookseller Indigo has done an impressive job of building its ebook offering, concentrating on the smartphone opportunity rather than waiting for the somewhat glacial development of the dedicated ebook reader market.

In his blog posting announcing the name change, Indigo vice-president Michael Serbinis focuses on the site’s international aspirations, claiming the new name “is a name that will appeal to readers around the world”. I didn’t think the old name was too bad but it was presumably too closely tied to the bookseller’s early, misconceived, plan to offer ebooks as part-works sold by the chapter. Thankfully they rapidly figured out this wasn’t going to fly and changed tack to put together a more conventional and increasingly credible offer. It includes their own ebook reading application, originally launched for the iPhone but now available for the Blackberry, Palm Pre and Android.

Accessing the site from New Zealand, I can buy a few titles but most are still blocked by territorial restrictions. The Kobo team are quite upbeat about their prospects for getting more international territorial rights and Serbini’s blog posting states they’re planning to offer more currencies. So it seems this name change really is part of a larger push to become a serious global ebook retailer.

Notable, of course, is the change relating to the territories from which the published works must come: it is now only the US, UK, Canada and Australia.

The document clarifies that rightsholders whose works were published in other territories such as New Zealand will no longer be class members (ie bound by the terms of the proposed settlement agreement) and, as a result, are now free to sue Google.

As an alternative, the court points rightsholders to this information page from Google where Google will keep jilted class members updated with alternatives, including the very useful Google Books Partner Program.

The court’s note, and Google’s page, refer to Google’s plans to extend this program to provide a service for publishers and authors that will be similar to the features offered under the class action — without the coercion.

The full text of the court’s summary follows:

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

The parties in Authors Guild, et al. v. Google Inc . announced a settlement of the litigation in October 2008 and sent out a Notice of that settlement (the “Original Settlement”). The parties have now amended the Original Settlement in response to discussions with the United States Department of Justice and objections to the Original Settlement (the “Amended Settlement”). The Amended Settlement Agreement (“ASA”), as well as the original Settlement Agreement and the original Notice, may be found at http://www.googlebooksettlement.com or obtained from the Settlement Administrator.

This Supplemental Notice is not designed to replace the original Notice, but rather, to supplement that Notice. This Supplemental Notice identifies:

1. The material amendments to the Original Settlement,
2. Your rights under the Amended Settlement, and
3. The date of the fairness hearing scheduled to determine whether the Amended Settlement should be granted final approval.

Summary of Amendments to the Original Settlement

1. Amended Settlement Class. The definition of Books has been narrowed. As a consequence, many class members under the Original Settlement are no longer class members under the Amended Settlement.

Rightsholders Who Are Included in the Amended Settlement Class

• For United States works, the definition of Books remains largely unchanged: United States works must have been published and registered with the United States Copyright Office by January 5, 2009 to be included in the Amended Settlement.
• Under the Amended Settlement, however, if the works are not United States works, they are only included in the Amended Settlement if they were published by January 5, 2009 and either were registered with the U.S. Copyright Office by that date or their place of publication was in Canada, the United Kingdom (“UK”) or Australia.

As a result of the narrowing of the definition of Books, the scope of Inserts has been narrowed as well.

Please note that you may be a member of the Amended Settlement Class even if you do not reside in the United States, Canada, the UK or Australia. If your work meets the criteria above, then you are a member of the Amended Settlement Class regardless of where you reside and regardless of where else your work may also have been published. (ASA Section 1.19)

A work will be considered to have a place of publication in Canada, the UK or Australia if its printed copy contains information indicating that the place of publication was in one of those three countries. Such information may include, for example, a statement that the book was “Published in [Canada or the UK or Australia],” or the location or address of the publisher in one of those three countries.

Rightsholders Who Are Not Included in the Amended Settlement Class

As a result of these amendments, if the only United States copyright interests you own are in works that were not either (a) published and registered with the United States Copyright Office by January 5, 2009 or (b) published in Canada, the UK or Australia by that date, you are not a member of the Amended Settlement Class, even if you were a member of the original Settlement Class.

If you are not a member of the Amended Settlement Class, you will not be eligible to participate in the Amended Settlement and you will not be bound by its terms. You retain all rights to sue Google for its digitization and use of your copyrighted material without your permission. If you wish to sue Google for such digitization and use, you must do so in a separate lawsuit. Your rights may be affected by laws limiting the time within which you may bring such a suit. If you are interested in bringing a lawsuit against Google, you should consult your own attorney.

If you were a class member under the Original Settlement, but are not a class member under the Amended Settlement, you should visithttp://books.google.com/books-partner-options in order to learn about Google’s current policies with respect to the removal of your works from its databases, as well as Google’s interest in making your works accessible in models similar to those in the Amended Settlement under similar terms.

2. Commercially Available. The Amended Settlement clarifies that a Book is Commercially Available if it is being offered for sale new by a seller anywhere in the world to a buyer in the United States, Canada, the UK or Australia. (ASA Section 1.31)

The Amended Settlement now provides that Google will not display any Book it classifies as not Commercially Available for at least 60 days after the date of that classification, or the Effective Date, whichever is later. The Amended Settlement also now provides that, if a Rightsholder asserts that a Book is Commercially Available, Google will not display the Book unless Google successfully challenges that assertion in a dispute. (ASA Sections 3.2(d)(i) and 3.3(a))

3. Representation of Canadian, UK and Australian Rightsholders on the Board of the Registry. The Amended Settlement provides that the Board of the Book Rights Registry (the “Registry”) will, at a minimum, have one author and publisher director each from Canada, the UK and Australia. (ASA Section 6.2(b)(ii))

4. Monitoring for Rightsholders Outside the United States. Because the services authorized by the Amended Settlement will be unavailable to users outside the United States, the Registry will, upon request, monitor Google’s use of Books and Inserts to ensure that they conform to the requirements of the Amended Settlement and to Rightsholders’ instructions, and will attempt to provide a means for such Rightsholders themselves to monitor and verify their claimed Books and Inserts. (ASA Section 6.1(f))

5. Dispute Resolution Optional For Rightsholders. The Amended Settlement now provides that Rightsholders may agree not to arbitrate disputes between or among them under the dispute resolution mechanism in the Amended Settlement. In addition, Rightsholders (but not Google) can elect to participate in any arbitration by teleconference or videoconference in order to save travel costs. (ASA Sections 9.1(a) and 9.3(a))

6. Independent Representation For Rightsholders of Unclaimed Books and Inserts. The Registry will include a fiduciary who will have the responsibility for representing the interests of Rightsholders with respect to the exploitation of unclaimed Books and Inserts. (ASA Section 6.2(b)(iii))

7. Unclaimed Books and Inserts and Unclaimed Funds. The Amended Settlement clarifies that, from its inception, the Registry will use settlement funds to attempt to locate Rightsholders. The Amended Settlement also now provides that funds owed to Rightsholders of unclaimed Books and Inserts (“Unclaimed Funds”) will not be used by the Registry for general operations or reserves and will not be distributed to claiming Rightsholders. The Amended Settlement makes the following changes to the Original Settlement: (a) after Unclaimed Funds are held for five years, the Registry, in collaboration with organizations in Canada, the UK and Australia, and in consultation with the fiduciary, may use up to 25% of the funds for the sole purpose of locating Rightsholders; and (b) remaining Unclaimed Funds will be held for the Rightsholders for at least 10 years, after which the Registry, subject to fiduciary approval as to timing, may apply to the Court for permission to distribute Unclaimed Funds to literacy-based charities in the United States, Canada, the UK and Australia, upon notice to Rightsholders, the attorneys general of all states in the United States and Fully Participating and Cooperating Libraries. (ASA Section 6.3)

8. Commitment to Improving Claiming Process and Website. The Amended Settlement provides that the Registry and Google (for as long as Google continues to provide operational support for the Registry) will maintain and improve the Settlement Website to facilitate the claiming of Books and Inserts. Google will also work to correct errors in the Books Database. (ASA Section 13.3)

9. Additional Revenue Models. The Amended Settlement now limits the potential new revenue models to the following three additional Revenue Models, which must be approved by the Registry:

1. Print-on demand (“POD”),
2. File download (formerly “PDF Download”), and
3. Consumer subscription.

The Amended Settlement limits POD, if approved, to Books that are not Commercially Available. In addition, the Amended Settlement specifies that the revenue split between Google and Rightsholders as to the additional Revenue Models will be the same as for the existing Revenue Models.

Finally, the Amended Settlement provides that Rightsholders of claimed works (and the fiduciary for unclaimed works) will be given timely advance notice before an additional Revenue Model is launched, with an opportunity to exclude works from that model. (ASA Section 4.7)

10. Agreeing to Different Revenue Splits for Commercially Available Books. For Commercially Available Books, the Amended Settlement provides that either Google or the Rightsholder will have the ability to request renegotiation of the 63/37 standard revenue split for any or all revenue models. If they cannot reach an agreement, then neither of the parties is obligated to offer the Rightsholder’s Books in the revenue models. (ASA Section 4.5(a)(iii))

11. Discounting off Consumer Purchase List Price. Google will now have an unlimited right to discount the List Price of Books for Consumer Purchase, so long as it continues to pay 63% of the undiscounted List Price to the Registry for Rightsholders. The Registry may also authorize Google to make special offers of Books for Consumer Purchase at reduced prices from the List Price and pay 63% of the discounted List Price to the Registry for Rightsholders. Claiming Rightsholders (and the fiduciary for unclaimed Books), however, will be notified of this reduced price proposal and can disapprove it for their (or unclaimed) Books. (ASA Sections 4.5(b)(i) and (ii))

12. Resale of Consumer Purchase. The Amended Settlement requires that Google allow third parties to sell consumer access to Books offered through Consumer Purchase, with the reseller receiving a majority of Google’s 37% share of the revenue split. (ASA Section 4.5(b)(v))

13. Non-discrimination Clause (i.e., “Most Favored Nations” clause). Section 3.8(a) of the Original Settlement has been eliminated from the Amended Settlement.

14. Settlement Controlled Pricing. The Amended Settlement clarifies that the Pricing Algorithm used to establish the Settlement Controlled Prices for Consumer Purchase will be developed to simulate the prices in a competitive market and that the price for a Book will be established without regard to changes to the price of any other Book. The Amended Settlement also clarifies that the Registry will not disclose the Settlement Controlled Price for a Book to anyone other than the Book’s Rightsholders. (ASA Sections 4.2(b)(i)(2), 4.2(c)(ii)(2) and 4.2(c)(iii))

15. Modification of Feature Restrictions. Rightsholders may authorize Google to modify or remove the Amended Settlement’s default restrictions on Revenue Model features, such as copy/paste and print. (ASA Section 3.3(g))

16. Registry Support for Alternative Licenses (Including Creative Commons). The Amended Settlement provides that the Registry will facilitate Rightsholders’ wishes to allow their works to be made available through alternative licenses for Consumer Purchase, including through a Creative Commons license. For information about Creative Commons licenses, visit http://www.creativecommons.org. The Amended Settlement also clarifies that Rightsholders are free to set the Consumer Purchase price of their Books at zero. (ASA Sections 1.44, 4.2(a)(i) and 4.2(b)(i)(1))

17. Public Access Terminals. The Amended Settlement authorizes the Registry to agree to increase the number of public access terminals at a public library building. (ASA Section 4.8(a)(i)(3))

18. Pictorial Works. The Amended Settlement no longer includes children’s book illustrations in the definition of Inserts. (ASA Section 1.75) The Amended Settlement, however, does not change the inclusion of pictorial works, such as graphic novels and children’s picture books, in the definition of Books and provides that the Amended Settlement only authorizes Google to display the pictorial images in such Books if a U.S. copyright owner of the pictorial image also is a Rightsholder of the Book. The Amended Settlement also clarifies that comic books are considered to be Periodicals and that Periodicals (as well as compilations of Periodicals) are not included in the definition of “Books,” and thus are not in the Amended Settlement. (ASA Section 1.104)

19. Music Notation. The definition of Book was amended in the Amended Settlement to better achieve the parties’ goal of excluding books that are primarily used to play music. (ASA Section 1.19) Also, “music notation” is no longer included in the definition of Inserts. (ASA Section 1.75)

20. Deadline to Claim Usage and Inclusion Fees. Usage Fees will now be held for Rightsholders who have not yet claimed their Books for at least ten years and Rightsholders will now be eligible for Inclusion Fees if they claim their Books or Inserts within ten years of the Effective Date, instead of five years, in both cases as had been provided in the Original Settlement. (Plan of Allocation Sections 1.1(c), 1.2(c) and 2.2)

Your Rights Under the Amended Settlement Agreement

Members of the Amended Settlement Class have the following options:

Rescheduled Date of the Fairness Hearing

The Court will hold a Fairness Hearing on February 18, 2010 at 10 A.M. in Courtroom 11A of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, United States Courthouse, 500 Pearl Street, New York, NY 10007, to consider whether the Amended Settlement, as set forth in the ASA, is fair, adequate and reasonable. Please review the original Notice for further information concerning participation in the Fairness Hearing.

If you have any questions concerning this Supplemental Notice or the Amended Settlement, please contact Class Counsel, or the Settlement Administrator, whose contact information may be found in the original Notice or at http://www.googlebooksettlement.com. You may also contact the Settlement Administrator at:

Google Book Search Settlement Administrator
c/o Rust Consulting, Inc.
PO Box 9364
Minneapolis, MN 55440-9364
+1.612.359.8600 (Tolls may apply. Toll-free numbers are available at http://www.googlebooksettlement.com.)

Sounds like more than a mouthful but this is very good news for ebook development. It potentially opens up the important iPhone channel to content from major commercial publishers who, love it or hate it, won’t release their books without DRM.

The ePub/Adobe Content Server 4 DRM combination is the system we’re planning to use in New Zealand for our 1000 Great New Zealand eBooks promotion and it is the one that is widely viewed as the best shot we have in the short term to create an open standard for ebooks, ‘open’ in the sense that will operate on many devices and can be sold or rented through many retail  channels.

Of course, this is bleeding edge technology so nothing is meant to be simple. Txtr is a German company — one to watch, by the way — and right now you can’t install their app in New Zealand or, I imagine, in most other countries, mainly because of various rights issues.

The important news, though, is that they’ve actually ported Adobe’s mobile reader SDK (software developer kit) to the iPhone and built an App with it that’s met Apple’s approval.

Will leading iPhone e-reading app Stanza soon add Adobe’s mobile reader technology?

Is this going to be Mac vs PC in reverse? Surely, much as we love the wonderful things Apple is doing, we don’t want to hand the prize over to one company again.

This battle is being fought on two fronts. One is the gadgets themselves. The other is the all-important marketplaces for applications and content that surround them. While we have our own fears about Google’s market power, at least the Android market is open and the Android platform is open source.

This article in TechCrunch from US Whitepages VP of Mobile Kevin Nakao looks at these emerging Android marketplaces and the opportunities around them and should help settle the nerves of early Android supporters.

Nakao admits their own Android app results are pretty mediocre when lined up against the iPhone — just 17% in fact. But he points to several good reasons why this will change, sooner rather than later. Among his points:

• Unlike the iPhone with its single Apple-owned store, the Android marketplace is open. There are more app sellers with more flexibility in what they can offer and how quickly they can get apps and content to the market. This will be good for innovation, says Nakao, and offer more purchase options for consumers.
• Google’s market strategy means Telcos will step up to the plate and offer integrated carrier billing to Android marketplaces. This has the potential to drive revenues strongly as consumers respond to “low friction” purchasing and subscription offers, one of things that Apple, of course, already offers.

Nakao makes several other useful points to support his case. While he uses US market examples, this is a trend that will play out very quickly around the world.

Read the full article in TechCrunch.

The new proposal essentially covers just works from the US, UK, Canada and Australia. Representatives from those countries will be on the board of the Rights Registry that will be formed to record and look after the interests of affected rightsholders whose works have been scanned.

In a blog post announcing the filing, Google Books Engineering Director Dan Clancy wrote:

We’re disappointed that we won’t be able to provide access to as many books from as many countries through the settlement as a result of our modifications, but we look forward to continuing to work with rightsholders from around the world to fulfill our longstanding mission of increasing access to all the world’s books.

Interestingly, many of those from countries excluded from the deal might now be asking themselves, “Why can’t we be in, too?” Perhaps this is part of the clever psychology of the deal, creating an apparent “haves” and “have nots” so that the excluded parties feel obliged to open negotiations with Google.

In Europe, this will probably head off the showdown that was looming with the European Union. And worldwide, the deal might have the positive effect of moving governments and cultural institutions from their slumber to start seriously investing in digitising their written heritage.

From New Zealand’s point of view, as one of the excluded parties, it opens up real opportunities to take control of the process and to do it in a way that is more respectful of rightholders and copyright protections. This should be a spur for the public institutions and the commercial sector to join forces and begin the process of digitising important older,  in-copyright works.

Thanks to TeleRead and Publishers Lunch for the summary of key points below:

The revised Settlement has made a number of important changes:
1. Foreign language works are out: the scope is limited to works registered with the US Copyright Office and books published in Canada, Australia and the U.K. There will be representatives from those countries on the Book Rights Registry board.
2. There will be an independent court-approved fiduciary who will represent rights-holders of unclaimed books and act to protect their interests, including licensing their works.
3. The Books Rights Registry is not required to search for rights-holders who have not come forward.
4. Third parties will be able to sell access to all settlement works, including orphans, even though Google will host the titles.
5. Revenue models have been limited to print on demand, file download and subscriptions.
6. Rights-holders may make their works available for free.
7. The Google’s most favored nation treatment has been eliminated allowing the Registry to license works to third parties without extending the same terms to Google.

See also this New York Times story.