Melville House Books

Richard Wright

Yesterday, Julia and Malcolm Wright, representing the estate of Richard Wright, author of Native Son, repeated their opposition to the Google Book Settlement.

Today, Thursday, January 28, is the deadline for authors to opt out of the settlement.

According to a New York Times report by Mokoto Rich, a statement by the Wrights (a PDF of the statement is available in Rich’s article) warns that the “settlement would effectively grant†Google a “monopoly on content†and that “Copyright law is effectively being amended by a private transaction…â€

Comparing the Google proposal to the Patriot Act, the Wrights predict the consequences of the settlement to be “so far-reaching and so packed with heavy ramifications for the future of human society, that only multi-national public arbitration would be appropriate.â€

The statement notes that the Wright’s joined the Steinbeck estate in opposing the settlement in May of last year. Last week a Times story reported that the Steinbeck estate has since stated that “the majority of the problems that we found to be troubling have been addressed.â€

A Guardian story reported on Friday that Ursula Le Guin has submitted a petition, signed by 367 writers, to Judge Denny Chin asking that “the United States also be exempted from the settlement. We ask that the principle of copyright, which is directly threatened by the settlement, be honored and upheld in the United States.â€

The petition begins by noting that the Google settlement was negotiated by the Authors Guild, “without consultation with any other group of authors or American authors as a whole. The Guild cannot and does not speak for all American writers.â€

Dan O'Connor is the Managing Editor of Melville House.