William Morris Endeavor Urges Clients to Avoid Google Book Settlement

As the September deadline nears for authors to decide if they want to be included in the Google book settlement, William Morris Endeavor is telling their clients to avoid the controversial agreement.

According to the New York Times, an attorney at the major talent agency approved Google’s snippet search, but disagreed the search company’s terms for digital book sales. Earlier this month, influential library groups decided that the settlement–which will give Google control of a historic digital collection of scanned books–should be approved.

Here’s more from William Morris business affairs attorney Eric Zohn, from the article: “It’s like a legislative change. Under copyright law, you don’t have anything without express written consent from the copyright holder. Now the court is saying Google is free to sell your book unless you expressly tell them not to.” (Via Publishers Lunch)

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