paul, why do you insist on laying all the blame
at the feet of congress?

it is the _job_ of _librarian_leaders_ like you to
make congress understand what it needs to do.

_you_ are the one who is failing to do your job…

for instance, the 5-year floating-window “escrow”?
why did it take a google lawyer to dream that up?
couldn’t you librarian leaders have thought of it?

and geez, the idea that you don’t even _know_
the most basic of facts about those “orphans” –
i.e., how many of them there are — is amazing…

even more so since you’re willing to let yourselves
– and all of society along with you — be locked in
to a legal decision that dictates their treatment…
(you can bet your sweet bippy that google knows.)

and, coincidentally, gives all the profits to google,
and its bureaucracy. and you have the gall to say
“we better make sure it won’t eat all the money.”

right, paul. because bureaucracies that are flush
with money always do so well with self-discipline.

you are throwing your credibility down the drain.

it’s astounding. absolutely astounding.

google has outflanked you library yahoos
every step of the way… every darn step!

even on your own terrain, they outsmart you!

and you guys keep letting them do it…
keep whining “this is the best we can do”.

it’s _not_ the best that “we” can do, paul.
it’s not close. it’s not even close to close.

and you can’t even show us where you have
used any creativity in _trying_ to do it better!
you’ve basically been sitting on your hands…

the people of michigan have paid _good_money_
to build and stock the library you’re in charge of.
you’ve also taken federal money along the way,
taxes collected from citizens across this nation.

you’re employed to safeguard that collection and
make it available to the people who’ve paid for it.
that’s why they hired you, pay you your big salary.

instead, you turned their property over to google.

and now google is gonna charge exorbitant fees
to the public to read a hard-copy of those books,
fees that will range to $20 for some of the books,
even though — at the current consumable rate of
a-penny-a-page for print-on-demand espresso –
the cost of that output is more like $2, not $20.

and the orphans aren’t the half of it. there’s also
in-copyright-out-of-print books, a huge segment!,
and google has the inside track on that profit too.

so paul, i advise you to retire as soon as you can.

because what you have done here will be making
the citizens of michigan, and the united states,
_very_angry_ when the reality of it sets into them.

they bought these books, and they have paid to
store ‘em safely for as long as 100 years or more,
employing people — like you — to watch over them,
and now they must buy ‘em _again_, from google?

when the reality of _that_ sinks in, paul, they are
going to be _very_angry_, and they’re gonna come
looking for the people who sold out their interests,
and if you are not safely retired when they arrive,
it might not be pretty… might not be pretty at all.

-bowerbird

I was at the same meeting at Columbia, and I remember the event quite differently. Alex McGilivray from Google spoke passionately for the need for orphan works legislation, and Jeff Cunard and Allan Adler (of the AAP) reiterated their well-known support. Representatives of the Authors Guild, however, said no such thing in public. Instead, Jan Constantine and Mike Boni stated their belief that the class action notice procedure is a great benefit of the lawsuit and a big step toward bring orphan owners forward, which they believe will significantly reduce the scope of the orphan problem. They said nothing about the need for legislation.

But the parties certainly did not publicly state an endorsement of your “obvious solution”–that is, Congress passing a law giving access to the same sort of arrangement that Google has under the settlement to anyone.

Is your post possibly referring to private statements rather than public ones? Otherwise, I’m more than a little confused by your blogpost.

Mary