A new lawsuit has been filed by the Author’s Guild and allied partners to stop digitization and free distribution by a university consortium of hundreds of books published by non-US authors. The university consortium feels these are orphaned books, but Author’s Guild states that authors haven’t been notified or given the chance to withhold their books from the project.

This is part of the push/pull between authors asking for fair payment for their work and those wanting access to information that began with the Google lawsuit. The tension clearly shows that agreement has not yet been reached on how to balance these needs. These decisions will set the course for the future of information and entertainment communication. I say communication because books as they are created as enhanced e-books will overlap more and more with other media. This is a critical juncture. If authors are not fairly compensated or able to assert adequate rights, future authors will be discouraged from creating new works and information flow will be reduced in quality and quantity as skilled communicators exit the field. If information is too closely guarded it may be hard for readers/viewers to access it. The courts will be strongly challenged to create a Solomen-like solution.

Here is the link to the article:

http://news.yahoo.com/authors-guild-sues-universities-over-online-books-233911504.html

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