ActuaLitté: “What solution today could replace Google Books?”
Peter Brantley: “A simple question but the answer could be almost arbitrarily complex. The proposed GBS settlement would have allowed Google to uniquely benefit from the commercialization of 20th Century literature under monopoly terms through U.S. class action law. In many respects, the proposals represented a privatized Extended Collective License (ECL), which otherwise, if enacted properly through legislation, would permit a wide range of organizations to benefit from negotiated terms with rights holders. There has been some discussion of how an ECL might be structured to benefit e.g. the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), but given the absence of precedent in the USA for this form of voluntary rights association (VRA), achieving a solution equitable for all parties faces many hurdles.”
From an interview with Brian Wafawarowa, Executive Director of Publishers’ Association of South Africa, and Peter Brantley, director of the Bookserver Project at the Internet Archive in the USA on Publishing Perspectives.