Academic Authors Letter to Judge Chin Feb 2012 (Samuelson)

"The signatories to this letter are academic authors whose works of authorship are typical of thebooks and other works found in the collections of major research libraries such as those of theUniversity of Michigan and others of Google’s library partners. We write scholarly works on aregular basis. Our primary motivation in preparing these works is to share the knowledge wehave cultivated with other scholars and interested members of the public. Although we are notindifferent to revenue streams we receive from books that we publish, the main reward we wishto attain from our intellectual labors is the satisfaction of contributing to the ongoing dialogueabout issues of concern to us and, perhaps as an added bonus, a reputation for excellence inscholarship among our peers. A number of us have made some or all of our academic work available on an open access basis through Creative Commons licenses and the like.... It bears mentioning thatdespite our having raised numerous objections and concerns about the proposed settlement in avery public way by putting them in the court record, none of us has been contacted by theproposed class representatives, the Authors Guild, or the lawyers who want to be designated asclass counsel to ask for our opinion about what our interests are, whether to pursue this litigation,what relief to seek, on what terms to settle it, or anything else....This lack of communication reinforces our concerns that the proposed class representatives andthe Authors Guild are not adequately representing the interests of academic authors at this juncture. Most significantly, their decision to continue the litigation shows that they do not shareacademic values, goals or objectives. None of us would have initiated a lawsuit against Googlefor copyright infringement in the first place because it scanned our and other academic authors’books for purposes of indexing their contents and serving up snippets in response to searchqueries.... By pursuing this lawsuit as a class action in the aftermath of the failure of theproposed settlement and not reaching a new settlement, we believe that the proposed classrepresentatives and the associational plaintiff in this case are engaged in actions that areantithetical to the interests of academic authors...."