Le Guin accuses Authors Guild of 'deal with the devil'; Guardian, 12/25/09

Alison Flood, Guardian; Le Guin accuses Authors Guild of 'deal with the devil':

Ursula K Le Guin has resigned from the writers' organisation in protest at settlement with Google over digitisation

"Ursula K Le Guin has accused the Authors Guild of selling authors "down the river" in the Google settlement and has resigned from the US writers' body in protest after almost 40 years' membership.

In a strongly-worded letter of resignation the award-winning science fiction and fantasy author said the Guild's decision to support Google in its plans to digitise millions of books meant she could no longer countenance being a member."

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," Le Guin wrote. "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.

"The Oregon-based writer has been a member of the Authors Guild since 1972. She said she was retaining membership in the National Writers Union and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, both of which opposed the Google books settlement. "They don't have your clout, but their judgment, I think, is sounder, and their courage greater," she wrote.

Best known for her children's fantasy series the Earthsea quartet, and for the science fiction title The Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin is the author of 21 novels, 11 volumes of short stories, three collections of essays, 12 books for children, six volumes of poetry and four of translation, and the recipient of literary awards including the Hugo, Nebula and National Book award. Her most recent publications include the poetry collection Incredible Good Fortune and the novel Lavinia, set in the world of Virgil's Aeneid and narrated by the wife-to-be of Aeneas.

The Authors Guild said in a statement that it regretted Le Guin's resignation and that "in many respects" it agreed with her position. "We hold the principles of copyright to be fundamental – they are bedrock principles for the Authors Guild and the economics of authorship. That's why we sued Google in the first place," it said. "It would therefore have been deeply satisfying, on many levels, to litigate our case to the end and win, enjoining Google from scanning books and forcing it to destroy the scans it had made. It also would have been irresponsible, once a path to a satisfactory settlement became available."

Offering to discuss the deal with Le Guin "at any time", the writers' body pointed out that if it had lost its case against Google, anyone, not just the search engine, could have digitised copyright-protected books and made them available online, prompting the "uncontrolled scanning of books" and "incalculable" damage to copyright protection. "The lessons of recent history are clear: when digital and online technologies meet traditional media, traditional media generally wind up gutted. Constructive engagement – in this case turning Google's infringement to our advantage - is sometimes the only realistic solution," it said.

In September, a group of almost 50 authors including Judy Blume, Elmore Leonard, Garrison Keillor, Barbara Taylor Bradford and Peter Straub all announced their public support of the Google books settlement."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/dec/24/le-guin-authors-guild-deal