Claiming a lengthy list of your books, short stories, essays, poems and articles for Google settlement benefits just got much easier. You can now start the process by simply submitting your bibliography to the claims administrator. You need only e-mail -- or send by regular mail -- a list of your books and shorter literary works (poems, short stories, articles) that may appear in books covered by the settlement. When in doubt, we suggest you submit everything.

Although the author's name and the title of the work is enough to get the ball rolling, it's helpful to include this additional information you can find in or on your books: ISBN, publisher, place and year of publication.

E-mail your bibliography to BookSettlement@RustConsulting.com. Feel free to send it as an attachment or paste it into the body of the e-mail itself.

I am not going to rehearse any arguments pro and anti the "Google settlement." You decided to deal with the devil, as it were, and have presented your arguments for doing so. I wish I could accept them. I can't. There are principles involved, above all the whole concept of copyright; and these you have seen fit to abandon to a corporation, on their terms, without a struggle.

So, after being a loyal if invisible member for so long, I am resigning from the Guild. I am, however, retaining membership in the National Writers Union and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, both of which opposed the "Google settlement." They don't have your clout, but their judgment, I think, is sounder, and their courage greater.

According to various reports Professor Roland Reuss, a literature professor from Germany's Heidelberg University, struck out at Google and the Settlement, negotiated in the US by the Association of American Publishers, and the US Authors Guild with Google. He described Google's lofty ideals as "just a whole garbage of hysterical propaganda", and warned of a threat to traditional publishing, saying "you revolutionize the market but the cost is that the producers of goods in this market will be demolished".

Reuss then rounded on Bertelsmann's Richard Sarnoff, who negotiated the deal as chair of the AAP, calling him "naive" and arguing that the deal disregarded the Berne Convention, and the rights of copyright holders to determine how their work was used. According to Publishers Weekly, Sarnoff said the parties to the deal did not anticipate the backlash in Europe. And he added that European works may indeed have to be removed from the settlement.

The parties in the Google Book Search Settlement have asked the court to adjourn the scheduled October 7th fairness hearing, telling the court the parties intend to amend the deal. "Because the parties, after consultation with the DOJ, have determined that the Settlement Agreement that was approved preliminarily in November 2008 will be amended, plaintiffs respectfully submit that the Fairness Hearing should not be held, as scheduled, on October 7," reads a memorandum appended to the parties motion to adjourn. "To continue on the current schedule would put the Court in a position of reviewing and having participants at the hearing speak to the original Settlement Agreement, which will not be the subject of a motion for final approval." The court is expected to grant the motion.

The memorandum notes that the parties met with senior DOJ officials on September 17, one day before the DOJ filed its brief with the court outlining a range of concerns with the current settlement agreement. "Of key importance is that the U.S. Statement of Interest confirmed the DOJ's reciprocal desire to work with the parties to address concerns," the memo states. "It is because the parties wish to work with the DOJ to the fullest extent possible that they have engaged, and plan to continue to engage, in negotiations in an effort to address and resolve the concerns expressed in the U.S. Statement of Interest." The parties reiterated their commitment to "rapidly advancing" discussions with the DOJ. The delay marks the second time the fairness hearing has been pushed back, the first time coming after lawyers for a group of authors led by Gail Steinbeck won a four month extension to the opt-out deadline.

After Amazon came out against the Google Settlement earlier this week, the Authors Guild has come back with a letter slamming the e-tailer, claiming that "Amazon's hypocrisy is breathtaking." The Guild likened Amazon's control of bookselling and the up-and-coming e-book market to a choke-hold, noting that everyone is waiting for the moment when the company will stop selling e-books at a loss and start to "squeeze publishers and authors" when everyone is locked in to the Kindle. The Guild said that, sadly, the Google plan won't infringe on Amazon's control of the business: "Amazon needn't worry, really: this agreement is about out-of-print books. Its lock on the online distribution of in-print books, unfortunately, seems secure."

After a recent meeting of its delegates held in Chicago, the National Writers Union has announced its opposition to the Google Book settlement with NWU president Larry Goldbetter calling the proposed agreement, "grossly unfair to writers." Goldbetter said that "compared to the number and seriousness" of the copyright violations engaged in by Google in scanning copyrighted materials, the offer to pay writers between $60 and $300 for each book is "ridiculously low." That only $45 million out of the $125 million in the settlement is allocated to pay writers, "seems way short of the amount needed to compensate authors of millions of books," Goldbetter said.

The NWU also objects to the deal because it believes it is burdensome to require writers to opt out rather than having Google ask permission to use their material. Finally, the NWU said the settlement could interfere with the relationship between writers and their publishers. "The settlement makes assumptions about electronic rights that writers may or may not have assigned to publishers and it sets up an unfair binding arbitration process to resolve disputes between writers and publishers. These disputes must be arbitrated on a case-by-case basis. The settlement does not allow for writers, who were collectively targeted, to collectively negotiate to settle these disputes."

Steinbeck, the driving force behind the extension, called the ruling great news. "We now have to time to really sink our teeth into what this agreement will mean," she said. She suggested that four months should be sufficient to determine whether changes made to the deal will make it more acceptable, or whether to opt out—or perhaps even object to the deal.

The Internet Archive (IA), which had a motion to intervene denied by Chin last week, also praised the decision. "We think this is very good news," IA's Peter Brantley told PW. "We are very interested in working with partners to...more squarely identify our concerns and articulate them to a broader audience."

Authors Guild president Paul Aiken shrugged off the extension. "We'd hoped for a shorter extension of time, since we’re eager to get on to the next phase of the process," he told PW. "It's not surprising, however. Nothing about this settlement has happened quickly."

Simon & Schuster is irked that we went public with our information about their unannounced new contract language. They've sent a release (you can read it below) accusing us of "perpetrat[ing] serious misinformation."

That's a heavy charge, so we went back and double-checked. We stand by every word of our statement.

Simon & Schuster's release pretends that the argument concerns "print on demand." That isn't the issue. We like print on demand: we encourage publishers to sell books in every permissible way. You wouldn't know it from reading its release, but Simon & Schuster already has the rights - as they have for years in their standard contract - to take advantage of print on demand and e-book technologies.

The issue is what happens when a book goes out of print, when the publisher is no longer selling it in meaningful numbers. Traditionally, rights then revert at the request of the author, who often is able to give the book a new life elsewhere. Simon & Schuster is trying to change the rules of the industry so that they never have to admit that a book is out of print.

We meant what we said in our press release and our alert to members:

1. Simon & Schuster's new contract would indeed allow it to retain exclusive rights to a book even if it were no longer in print. Simon & Schuster's contract says, "The Work shall not be deemed out of print as long as it is available in any U.S. trade edition, including electronic editions." Having a book available for sale in some database - without the obligation to sell a single copy - is not keeping a book "in print" as common sense and the industry have defined that term.

2. Simon & Schuster would, under its new contract, be empowered to exclusively control your rights even if your books aren't available for sale through traditional bookstores. E-book availability (read any good e-books lately?) would be enough to fulfill Simon & Schuster's contractual commitments under its interpretation of "in print." Roy Blount is plainly right, this contract would allow Simon & Schuster to squirrel away rights.

3. Simon & Schuster's press release avowals about its promotional efforts as it pursues "incremental income" for backlist titles are not legally binding. Simon & Schuster goes on at some length about efforts to market backlist titles including "regularly review[ing] inventory opportunities with all our accounts" and engaging in the "distribution of online assets (cover, bios, synopses, chapters) and data feeds about basic information" on backlist titles to retailers. Whatever the merit of these efforts, Simon & Schuster carefully avoids committing to them on behalf of authors with books relegated to the backlist.

4. Simon & Schuster's efforts to alter the true core deal of a trade book contract - that a publisher controls the right to sell an author's book only so long as the publisher effectively exploits that right - demanded exposure. Agents reported to us that Simon & Schuster had slipped the change into its contracts without alerting agents to the alteration, which was quite subtle and easily missed. Agents also reported that when they discovered the change and questioned the publisher about it, Simon & Schuster played hardball, saying the clause was non-negotiable and wouldn't be discussed. In its release, Simon & Schuster seems miffed that we didn't discuss their new contractual language with them before exposing it to sunlight. Engaging in discussions with a conglomerate playing hardball while authors may have been unwittingly signing rights away would, in our view, have been irresponsible.