EMI Opts Out of Google Book Settlement, Challenges Terms

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 16, 2009 - 8:47am.

London - EMI Music Publishing has fully opted out of Google's (NASD: GOOG) proposed settlement with authors over its book-scanning project, and further argued that it should not have to provide Google with a list of the over one million copyrights it owns and does not wish Google to use, MediaBistro reports. Authors are free to opt out of having their works included in Google's massive digital book index.

Currently, the company is asking publishers and authors to provide a list of titles they want excluded from the index, but EMI believes it is not obliged to do so under the law.

"Requiring EMI, a music publisher that owns or controls over one million copyrights written by thousands of different songwriters and licensed for use in thousands of different publications, to endeavor to determine each and every publication that may include music or lyrics owned or controlled by EMI... just so that it may tell Google not to infringe on them... would be prohibitively burdensome and costly, and at odds with well-settled principles of copyright law," EMI says in its letter to the court.

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/rwvym (MediaBistro)

http://thepublicindex.org/docs/opt_outs/EMI.pdf (PDF of EMI letter)

http://www.emi.com