What's New

Final Settlement/Fairness Hearing - 18th February 2010
Judge Chin announced at the start of the hearing that he would not rule today at this hearing. At the end of the day, after hearing submissions from 21 objectors and 5 in favour together with the US Department of Justice and the parties to the case, he said he had been given a lot to think about. Reporting on the hearing can be found:-

Publishers Weekly
Reuters

Public Lending Right
Payments for the UK Public Lending Right and Dutch Public Lending Right were made on the 17th February 2010.

Amended Google Book Settlement Revised Time Line
Judge Chin has given his preliminary approval to the amended Settlement Agreement. The revised dates are:-

Final Settlement/Fairness Hearing - 18th February 2010
Deadline for Objections - 28th January 2010
Deadline for Supplemental Notices - 14th December 2009


Amended Google Book Settlement UPDATE 14th November 2009
The revised settlement filed on 13th November narrows the scope to "English speaking countries only" listing books published in the UK, Canada and Australia. It alters how revenue generated by "unclaimed works" are handled. It formally grants retailers, including Google competitors, who licence out-of-print works covered by the settlement, a 37% share. It also clarifies how the book pricing algorithm works.

For more information:-

The revised Settlement Agreement
Summary of changes
Link to amended Settlement FAQs

We will be contacting Irish rightsholders as the situation becomes clearer.

Google Book Settlement
The Court has agreed an extension until Friday 13th November for the filing of an amended settlement agreement.

Google Book Settlement
The Court has set the 9th November as the date for the filing of an amended settlement agreement.

The date to file claims has been extended from 5th January 2010 to 5th June 2010.


Authors' Survey
ICLA is conducting a survey into authors' incomes from their writing. This is similar to a piece of research undertaken by ALCS in the United Kingdom in 2007. The results of the ALCS Survey can be seen here

This survey has now closed. Many thanks to all those who took part and we will bring you the results later this Spring.


PLR Update
The closing date for registering for PLR from the new Irish PLR scheme is 9th October 2009. Works registered after this date will be eligible for payment in 2010. A payment from Irish PLR is expected before the end of 2009 and will be made directly through the Library Council. www.plr.ie

If you receive PLR payments from ICLA for the UK and Dutch schemes, you will continue to receive these payments in the usual way in February 2010.

We are also in the process of negotiating agreements with the German and French schemes.

Google Book Settlement Update

Google Fairness Hearing Postponed
The Fairness Hearing concerning the Google Settlement terms that was due to proceed in a New York court next month has been postponed. A status conference will be held instead on the 7th October to determine how the case should be approached.

Last week the US Department of Justice requested that the Settlement should not go through in its current form, recommending that it be brought into line with US copyright and anti-trust laws.

Judge Chin said, “under the circumstances, it makes no sense to conduct a hearing on the fairness and reasonableness of the current settlement agreement, as it does not appear that the current settlement will be the operative one.”

Among the many bodies that have contested the Settlement in its current form are the Authors Guild, American Association of Publishers, Amazon, Yahoo and Microsoft. Main concerns centre around Google’s potential power of controlling book prices and the issue of Google’s exclusive control over orphaned works in which the rights holder cannot be traced.


Google Book Settlement
In 2004 Google first announced its intention to undertake a massive project to digitise books and make them available to users. Academic libraries, including Harvard and Oxford, entered into partnerships with Google to digitise the libraries’ collections of works. However, in many cases the digitisation was done without the permission of the copyright owner.

In 2005, the Authors Guild of America and certain authors and publisher representatives of the Association of American Publishers separately sued Google for copyright infringement.

In 2008, the parties reached a settlement agreement, which, if approved by the court in a hearing scheduled for June 11th 2009, may affect almost every book in the world, and consequently, almost every copyright owner (creator, publisher, heir or other rightsholder) who has copyright in one or more books. In fact, the settlement notice advised copyright owners to “assume that you own a U.S. copyright interest in your book”. If this applies to you, you are considered part of the settlement class for this agreement.

What does the Settlement Agreement cover?
The settlement would allow Google, on a non-exclusive basis, to digitise nearly every book ever published before January 5th, 2009. This is literally millions of works, and most likely will include your works.

For further information please contact us info@icla.ie. or go to the settlement website www.googlebooksettlement.com


Public Lending Right
Public Lending Right in Ireland was established by the Copyright and Related Rights (Amendment) Act 2007. The Act enables the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to establish a Public Lending Remuneration scheme. The regulations establishing the scheme, S.I. No. 597 of 2008, were signed on 31st December 2008.

Information about the scheme is available at www.plr.ie

International Digital Repertoire
ICLA are pleased to announce that the repertoire covered by the scanning section of our licences will extend to cover UK, US, Spanish, South African and Danish works from 1st January 2009.

New Licence Period for Primary Schools
The new licence period for the ICLA primary school licence commences on 1st November 2008. Renewal notices will be sent out during October 2008. If you have a new school opening during this period, please contact our licensing officer.

Public Lending Right is now law
The Copyright Bill 2007 was passed on 28th November 2007 and provides the legal framework for a Public Lending Right Scheme to remunerate authors whose books are borrowed through public libraries. It is now up to the Minister for Environment, Heritage & Local Government to make regulations implementing the scheme.

Legal Deposit
Section 198 of the Copyright & Related Rights Act 2000 was commenced on 1st May 2007. This section gives details of publishers' obligations to deposit copies of works first published in Ireland with various libraries.

Introduction of Artists’ Resale Right
ICLA welcomed the introduction by Statutory Instrument of the Artists’ Resale Right in June 2006 and looks forward to imminent full implementation of the right. This right is being primarily managed by IVARO (www.ivaro.ie).

Extension of Educational Licence to include limited digital uses
From September 2006, ICLA is offering an extension to the digital licence for post primary schools to cover scanning of Irish Licensing Material to a closed access intranet. To take out this extension please download two copies of the Digital Extension and return to us at 25 Denzille Lane, Dublin 2.

Extension of Educational Licence to include Artistic Works
From September 2006, ICLA is delighted to announce the inclusion of artistic works in Licenced Material in the Educational Licence. For further information please contact licensing@icla.ie.

Increase in Post Primary Licence Fee
The licence fee for the academic year 2008/2009 is .50c per pupil plus VAT @ 21% as agreed with the management bodies of the post-primary schools. There have been two previous agreed increases for the academic years 2007/2008 to .40c plus VAT and 2006/2007 to .30c plus VAT. The fee will stay at .50c plus VAT for the academic year 2009/2010.

Increase in Primary Licence Fee
The licence fee for the licence period 1st October 2005 to 30th September 2008 is now .60c per pupil plus VAT at 21% as agreed with the management boards of the primary schools.

Extension of the HE Licence to cover Digital Uses
From January 2006, ICLA's HE Licence had the option of a Digital Licence Extension. This extension allows scanning of Irish Licenced Materials for use on a closed access intranet or virtual learning environments. For further information please contact licensing@icla.ie.

Launch of Irish Visual Artists’ Rights Organisation
ICLA together with the Sculptors’ Society of Ireland and the Copyright Association of Ireland are supporting the creation of IVARO, a collecting society for visual artists in Ireland. For further information, contact artist@icla.ie or www.ivaro.ie. IVARO was launched on Saturday 25th June 2005 at the Project Arts Centre in Dublin.