Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Google Book Agreement

Mike Shatzkin has been thinking about what the Google Book agreement with AAP and AG could mean for revenues: Where will the money come from? (He's roped me in as well):

The part that interests me most is the potential revenue beyond the settlement. Where is the revenue for this going to come from? Who will buy what from the material Google has digitized and what will the revenue opportunities really be for those who “opt in”? And what will Google really have to sell?

I went to Michael Cairns, former CEO of Bowker with this question and he and I are starting to think it through.

All the focus on revenues in the conversations I’ve heard, including a very stimulating seminar at Columbia ten days ago, has been about digital revenue. And that’s what Cairns and I were thinking about too. What, besides the pre-1923 PD stuff do they have in the databases they can license to libraries? So how much can they charge? We saw Google’s pricing idea for ebooks. What will copyright owners do about pricing? And will copyright owners give Google books under this program, or under the Google Partnership Program? These are complicated questions.

Distracting, even.

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