The behemoth Google Books is impacting on your local NSW government agency. Who might be interested in erosion in the Upper Lachlan catchment, or vector maps from the Plague Locust Board? Never mind, they’re not going to be able to rip off the NSW taxpayers and get away with it.
In Circular C2011-10 Google Books Settlement – Whole of Government Policy, the Department of Premier and Cabinet, advises its agencies to “carefully consider whether their commercially published books should be “removed” from the Google Books databases or ‘excluded’ from one or more of the uses proposed in the Amended Settlement”.
As, under the settlement, Google can upload a “wide range of material including all material published in hard copy in NSW prior to 5 January 2009”, the government had to decide whether to “make a comprehensive claim” for all Crown copyright publications.
In the end, they left it up to individual agencies to decide whether to get their books removed by 5 April, and, if they did so, to make a compensation claim.
“NSW Government agencies should not enter a ‘revenue sharing’ agreement with Google under the terms of the Amended Settlement,” the circular said.