eldavojohn writes "Yesterday we covered Microsoft's jabs at the Google book deal, but today Reuters is reporting that the scanned books will be available to Google's rivals. Google said in a surprising statement, 'Google will host the digital (out-of-print) books online, and retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore will be able to sell access to users on any Internet-connected device they choose.' They made this statement today at the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee that had been called to discuss criticism of a 2008 settlement between the Authors Guild and Google. Well, I would bet this has caught more than a few people by surprise. The Authors Guild offers a history and the fine print of the agreement."
Google: Google will host the digital (out-of-print) books online, and retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore will be able to sell access to users on any Internet-connected device they choose. Microsoft: Well, the Jerk Store called, and they're running out of you.
(yes, that stupid joke works with almost any topic)
Google: Google will host the digital (out-of-print) books online, and retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore will be able to sell access to users on any Internet-connected device they choose.
Oh, joy. So what they're saying is that they retain their questionably-obtained monopoly over publishing these titles, but instead of paying them for a copy of the book, I can instead choose to pay both them and a retailer surcharge for a DRM-protected copy of the book? Exciting!
It's awful nice of Google to open up new channels of income for themselves. Why, I can't imagine why anyone would want to be allowed to compete directly. Anyone who does must be evil.
Really? What is this bullshit? Perhaps you have a better suggestion on what we should do in order to bring these books back from the dead. Be fucking happy that Google is a pro-competitive company and stop being a damned douchebag.
And before you decide to fire back, how many companies do you know of with the spare resources, manpower, or motivation to do this thing properly?
Really? What is this bullshit? Perhaps you have a better suggestion on what we should do in order to bring these books back from the dead. Be fucking happy that Google is a pro-competitive company and stop being a damned douchebag.
The same suggestion as always: Lobby Congress to open rights to orphaned works to publishers, with residuals going into trust via the WGA, the US Copyright Office, or a new administrative organization. And I'd hesitate to call "allowing others to buy from us, then resell" pro-competition.
And before you decide to fire back, how many companies do you know of with the spare resources, manpower, or motivation to do this thing properly?
Lexis-Nexis comes instantly to mind. Penguin Books, Del Ray Publishing, Microsoft, Ballantine Books, the Gutenberg Project, Yahoo!, AOL, Borders Books and Music, and plenty of others could pull it off, albeit some at a smal
My one single question regarding Google's arrangement is, whether they have an "exclusive" deal, or not.
It's exclusive in the sense that anyone wishing to publish electronically, other than Google, must have copyright contractually assigned by the copyright holder, but Google is no longer bound by copyright laws when choosing to publish books which are not currently being printed (including future books).
The exception is that, if Google rejects a book, the Registry may assign the electronic printing rights, under the same terms, to someone else.
There's a bit (a lot) more to it - copyright owners may, with limitations, stop Google from publishing their books, and with limitations, may set the price of the books. But it binds current and future authors and publishers to file specific forms in specific ways at specific times if they don't want Google sellin' their stuff.
[quote]My one single question regarding Google's arrangement is, whether they have an "exclusive" deal, or not. Can Gutenberg still scan and distribute a public domain book that Google has scanned? If so - there is NO PROBLEM with Google's arrangement. If so, the I can see a problem.[/quote]
Yes. There is nothing stopping people from:
1) Scanning public domain books and distributing them. 2) Creating similar deals with the Authors' Guild and scanning the exact same books Google does and distributing them. 3) Pu
I'm pretty sure that they just said "We are going to sell these on the internet. If you like, you can sell devices that connect to the internet." Perfectly fine; but not exactly news.
More middlemen. More slices out of a pie that has already been dished up.
A significant portion of "businesses" today are simply middlemen doing exactly the same thing.
Right down to the apple on my desk, a lot of someones are getting a slice of the pie. The grower, the trucker, the distributor, the vendor, the government inspector, the company that makes the pesticides and waxes that cover it, the fertilizer supplier, the taxman, the dude that made the box it was shipped in, etc, etc, ad nauseum.
I can instead choose to pay both them and a retailer surcharge for a DRM-protected copy of the book?
Isn't that how most retail sales work? (they are often the same price, just the OEM takes a smaller cut for the retailers service) I can buy the same book from oreilly.com [slashdot.org] or amazon.com [slashdot.org] heck soon you will have the choice, buy a kindle DRM'd version, or a non DRM'd version from either as well. The kindle is a great example, you can buy a DRM'd book from amazon and have it loaded onto your device automatically for $9.99, or go to oreilly, buy it without DRM for less, ($7.99) then transfer it to a memory ca
Google is basically moving us to the digital era. Companies like IBM, MS, Xerox have worked to keep us locked into a dual economy and make as much from it as possible. I think that if I were other nations, I would be BEGGING google to set up shop in their nations.
If you made as much profit as IBM selling giant printers (for printing things like bank statements) you would prolong their life too.
And Microsoft.. if they didn't have printer drivers as an easy way to royally screw a system up, blue screens, reboots, crawling slow for no reason, then nobody would upgrade to vista or windows 7.
Google can't search paper. So they don't care.
It's my understanding that only orphan works are being included in the settlement, so the only people who are being hurt are
1) Incapable of protecting their rights anyway 2) Too lazy to do so, or 3) Copyright trolls looking to pounce on innocent infringers.
Mind you, I'd rather have the opt-out deadline be replaced by a zero-liability cease and desist option where someone who proves copyright can have google stop providing access, but can't claim damages.
The Authors Guild represents 8,000 writers (I used to be one of them). There are millions of "orphan" works still covered by US and international copyright law. The Guild has no standing to negotiate for anyone except their members.
Google has made absolutely ZERO attempt to ascertain the identity or whereabouts of the rightsholders of these "orphan" works. I'm one of them. I have been notified by Google about each of my in-print books (five in all), but NONE of my parents' books, even though they were published by HarperCollins, who used to send me royalty checks for those books and would no doubt be happy to tell Google how to reach me.
The fact that, in desperation, Google agrees to share the fruits of its theft does not make everything OK. They have no right to share what was never theirs in the first place. And the Authors Guild are a bunch of useless whores who stand to make a pot of money off this rotten deal.
I won't claim intimate detail with the status of the "orphan books", but if what I've read is accurate, these are generally books that are out-of-print and not actively managed by the publisher or author. In this case, I say Google is doing a service by bringing to light a wide body of literature that would otherwise either remain unused or even disappear. Insisting on strict enforcement of copyright law leaves everyone worse off: the authors and publishers are still not getting anything because they have abandoned the works, and those who might have actually been interested in the material remain without access to it.
I won't claim intimate detail with the status of the "orphan books", but if what I've read is accurate, these are generally books that are out-of-print and not actively managed by the publisher or author. In this case, I say Google is doing a service by bringing to light a wide body of literature that would otherwise either remain unused or even disappear. Insisting on strict enforcement of copyright law leaves everyone worse off: the authors and publishers are still not getting anything because they have abandoned the works, and those who might have actually been interested in the material remain without access to it.
But this is effectively going to be 'strict enforcement of copyright law' - only Google will have the rights to electronically reproduce these works, unless of course they generously licence them to third parties (for a fee, naturally).
A much, much better solution would be to change copyright law so that if no rights holder can be identified after reasonable efforts, a work is deemed to be out of copyright.
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday September 10, @05:19PM (#29383739)
In what way do you think Google is going to get rich off this deal? Under ideal circumstances, it might take 50 years to recompense the enormous cost of scanning every single book in the United States. Can you even imagine the amount of work that goes into that? There's a reason nobody else is involved in this so-called gold mine. And uh, sharing their entire library with all competitors? Money, meet toilet. Flush.
And yet you're telling me they're doing evil here because they haven't managed to personally track down the heir of two presumably dead writers? And this heir has apparently not even bothered to contact Google himself. Cry me a fucking river. How about you stop and realize how much Google is already doing to support one of the greatest knowledge-preserving enterprises the world has ever seen, and get off your couch and do your own miniscule part to direct the enterprise as it concerns you.
Too late, my spotty little friend. Tell me, should my son be allowed to inherit the business I started, or should it be seized the day after my death and distributed to the masses? If I rent out my house, should he be allowed to collect that rent after I croak? What is so special about intellectual property?
Copyright was established to *encourage* production of intellectual or creative works such that ultimately society as a whole benefits. The carrot to producers of such works was a limited ability to make money through sales of copies. Where does the original intent of copyright say that your son is entitled to make money off your creation? If your son simply inherits your works, where is his incentive to produce? Where is the benefit to society?
Unlike your rented house, which is a non-copyable physical
About 15 years ago, I got rid of the printer. I figured that the ONLY way to walk away from paper was to not print any (zaurus and newton are wonderful tools). ABout 7 years ago, I quit buying paperbacks. ALl of my new books were either hardcover or leather bound (easton press; great group). Now, I will go only with leather bound/acid free. I figure that top end books will go up in price, while everybody is moving to e-books.
Surely you are joking right? The Asus Ebook reader isn't E-ink which means two things, one is shorter battery life and the other is more eye strain. Plus the Asus Ebook reader isn't cheap. Yeah, its cheaper than some with E-ink displays but it is by no means a game changer.
Google's book scanner is indeed robotic [slashdot.org], and it doesn't need to press the pages flat. It uses two cameras and a light pattern projected on the page so that the curvature of the page can be determined, and thus eliminated via software.
A couple years back I was involved with some people doing digitization and at the time there were basically two options:
a) unbind the book and just feed it through an automatic scanner. This is fast but not good if you are dealing with old, rare books.
b)use a special table that is shaped like a V: you put the spine in the bottom of the V, and open to the first page, then a piece of plexiglass (also shapped like a V) drops down and holds the pages flat while two cameras each snap an image of each page. Th
Google has already agreed to provide access to libraries. The plan is to set up a google terminal in libraries so that people can access them.
It seems unlikely that they will allow Project Gutenberg any access though.
The scanning activity is labor and the data in scanned form -- meaning pixels, not text, and text as a product of OCR, not the text of the book (even though, ideally, those are one in the same) is Google's property.
I therefore doubt that Gutenberg can have the files. They can link to them, though.
Well, in the US at least, mere labor is insufficient for copyright to arise. Rather, a copyrightable work (or the copyrightable portions thereof) must be original and creative. Here, Google is engaged in slavish copying; they are copying extant works, so their scans are not original, and they are copying as exactly as they can, so they are not creative.
and text as a product of OCR
Again, though, they are copying as exactly as they can manage. This means the machine readable text
From reading TFA it seems that Google is doing this voluntarily. Is there any guarantee that google will do this indefinitely and won't make any associated feeds unreasonably large?
No, but voluntary regulation is always preferable to the innovation destruction inerrant in top-down regulation. It is only when voluntary regulation isn't working that top-down regulation becomes a necessary evil. That someone could use something for evil doesn't mean we need to keep them from using it for good.
Google is circumventing copyright law and capturing works that are in the public domain. Going forward, they monetize a previously free work eternally.
If information wants to be free, then how *exactly* is that freeing books?
To me, information freedom includes diffusivity. If no one actually sees the information, e.g. a pile of books sitting in a disused corner of a library, it is not "free". Google is allowing these books to be seen, through digitization and online availability, and asking to be reimbursed the labor cost.
If a work is in the public domain, then it is no longer protected by copyright law in regards to the possibility of circumventing it. What they are doing is creating a derivative work of a public domain work (which they are free to do, as the original owner no longer has rights in regard to how the materials are used), which they will then own copyright on until such time as that expires and their scans/ocr of the original text enters the public domain, at which point you are free to use their materials to
Maybe free as in liberating rather than price? I don't mean to threadcrap but I thought Google's intent was to take books that basically nobody have access to anymore and making them available. What use is a previously free work that nobody can read? Ideally, publishers should take the initiative to make all out-of-print, rare, orphaned books available.
How can one circumvent copyright law for books in the "public domain"? If they are in the public domain, they are free to anyone.
What you meant to say, was they are making previously unavailable books that are still under copyright available to everyone. They are even providing competitors with access to the works that Google spent a fortune to scan. Nothing prevents Amazon or Microsoft from scanning these books themselves and working out a similar agreement with the authors guild, but they don't want to invest the money since they are already so far behind.
In the end, everyone (including the authors) benefits because these books will once again be available to the public as they were intended.
Google saw the writing on the wall, they were going to lose, and they were taking a huge beating in the press while losing, and an even bigger one when they would eventually lose. So they did what most companies do, try to find a settlement.
Microsoft's reply (Score:5, Funny)
Google: Google will host the digital (out-of-print) books online, and retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore will be able to sell access to users on any Internet-connected device they choose.
Microsoft: Well, the Jerk Store called, and they're running out of you.
(yes, that stupid joke works with almost any topic)
Re:Microsoft's reply (Score:5, Insightful)
Google: Google will host the digital (out-of-print) books online, and retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore will be able to sell access to users on any Internet-connected device they choose.
Oh, joy. So what they're saying is that they retain their questionably-obtained monopoly over publishing these titles, but instead of paying them for a copy of the book, I can instead choose to pay both them and a retailer surcharge for a DRM-protected copy of the book? Exciting!
It's awful nice of Google to open up new channels of income for themselves. Why, I can't imagine why anyone would want to be allowed to compete directly. Anyone who does must be evil.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Bend over.
It's a good thing we have antitrust laws to stop this kind of thing from happening. Now if only the U.S. DOJ would enforce them.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
And before you decide to fire back, how many companies do you know of with the spare resources, manpower, or motivation to do this thing properly?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? What is this bullshit? Perhaps you have a better suggestion on what we should do in order to bring these books back from the dead. Be fucking happy that Google is a pro-competitive company and stop being a damned douchebag.
The same suggestion as always: Lobby Congress to open rights to orphaned works to publishers, with residuals going into trust via the WGA, the US Copyright Office, or a new administrative organization. And I'd hesitate to call "allowing others to buy from us, then resell" pro-competition.
And before you decide to fire back, how many companies do you know of with the spare resources, manpower, or motivation to do this thing properly?
Lexis-Nexis comes instantly to mind. Penguin Books, Del Ray Publishing, Microsoft, Ballantine Books, the Gutenberg Project, Yahoo!, AOL, Borders Books and Music, and plenty of others could pull it off, albeit some at a smal
Re:Microsoft's reply (Score:5, Informative)
My one single question regarding Google's arrangement is, whether they have an "exclusive" deal, or not.
It's exclusive in the sense that anyone wishing to publish electronically, other than Google, must have copyright contractually assigned by the copyright holder, but Google is no longer bound by copyright laws when choosing to publish books which are not currently being printed (including future books).
The exception is that, if Google rejects a book, the Registry may assign the electronic printing rights, under the same terms, to someone else.
There's a bit (a lot) more to it - copyright owners may, with limitations, stop Google from publishing their books, and with limitations, may set the price of the books. But it binds current and future authors and publishers to file specific forms in specific ways at specific times if they don't want Google sellin' their stuff.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
[quote]My one single question regarding Google's arrangement is, whether they have an "exclusive" deal, or not. Can Gutenberg still scan and distribute a public domain book that Google has scanned? If so - there is NO PROBLEM with Google's arrangement. If so, the I can see a problem.[/quote]
Yes. There is nothing stopping people from:
1) Scanning public domain books and distributing them.
2) Creating similar deals with the Authors' Guild and scanning the exact same books Google does and distributing them.
3) Pu
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
More middlemen. More slices out of a pie that has already been dished up.
A significant portion of "businesses" today are simply middlemen doing exactly the same thing.
Right down to the apple on my desk, a lot of someones are getting a slice of the pie. The grower, the trucker, the distributor, the vendor, the government inspector, the company that makes the pesticides and waxes that cover it, the fertilizer supplier, the taxman, the dude that made the box it was shipped in, etc, etc, ad nauseum.
Now, I real
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I can instead choose to pay both them and a retailer surcharge for a DRM-protected copy of the book?
Isn't that how most retail sales work? (they are often the same price, just the OEM takes a smaller cut for the retailers service) I can buy the same book from oreilly.com [slashdot.org] or amazon.com [slashdot.org] heck soon you will have the choice, buy a kindle DRM'd version, or a non DRM'd version from either as well. The kindle is a great example, you can buy a DRM'd book from amazon and have it loaded onto your device automatically for $9.99, or go to oreilly, buy it without DRM for less, ($7.99) then transfer it to a memory ca
Re: (Score:2)
Twix! They're all Twix!
There goes Google... (Score:5, Funny)
Being less evil again.
That was EXACTLY my thought (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:That was EXACTLY my thought (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Agreed.
It's my understanding that only orphan works are being included in the settlement, so the only people who are being hurt are
1) Incapable of protecting their rights anyway
2) Too lazy to do so, or
3) Copyright trolls looking to pounce on innocent infringers.
Mind you, I'd rather have the opt-out deadline be replaced by a zero-liability cease and desist option where someone who proves copyright can have google stop providing access, but can't claim damages.
But this isn't half bad even not considering t
Re:There goes Google... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Authors Guild represents 8,000 writers (I used to be one of them). There are millions of "orphan" works still covered by US and international copyright law. The Guild has no standing to negotiate for anyone except their members.
Google has made absolutely ZERO attempt to ascertain the identity or whereabouts of the rightsholders of these "orphan" works. I'm one of them. I have been notified by Google about each of my in-print books (five in all), but NONE of my parents' books, even though they were published by HarperCollins, who used to send me royalty checks for those books and would no doubt be happy to tell Google how to reach me.
The fact that, in desperation, Google agrees to share the fruits of its theft does not make everything OK. They have no right to share what was never theirs in the first place. And the Authors Guild are a bunch of useless whores who stand to make a pot of money off this rotten deal.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Now you know why I don't like class action suits.
Re:There goes Google... (Score:5, Insightful)
I won't claim intimate detail with the status of the "orphan books", but if what I've read is accurate, these are generally books that are out-of-print and not actively managed by the publisher or author. In this case, I say Google is doing a service by bringing to light a wide body of literature that would otherwise either remain unused or even disappear. Insisting on strict enforcement of copyright law leaves everyone worse off: the authors and publishers are still not getting anything because they have abandoned the works, and those who might have actually been interested in the material remain without access to it.
Parent
Re:There goes Google... (Score:5, Insightful)
I won't claim intimate detail with the status of the "orphan books", but if what I've read is accurate, these are generally books that are out-of-print and not actively managed by the publisher or author. In this case, I say Google is doing a service by bringing to light a wide body of literature that would otherwise either remain unused or even disappear. Insisting on strict enforcement of copyright law leaves everyone worse off: the authors and publishers are still not getting anything because they have abandoned the works, and those who might have actually been interested in the material remain without access to it.
But this is effectively going to be 'strict enforcement of copyright law' - only Google will have the rights to electronically reproduce these works, unless of course they generously licence them to third parties (for a fee, naturally).
A much, much better solution would be to change copyright law so that if no rights holder can be identified after reasonable efforts, a work is deemed to be out of copyright.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Are you sure it was Google and not Harper Collins that dropped the ball wrt. your parents books?
Re:There goes Google... (Score:5, Insightful)
In what way do you think Google is going to get rich off this deal? Under ideal circumstances, it might take 50 years to recompense the enormous cost of scanning every single book in the United States. Can you even imagine the amount of work that goes into that? There's a reason nobody else is involved in this so-called gold mine. And uh, sharing their entire library with all competitors? Money, meet toilet. Flush.
And yet you're telling me they're doing evil here because they haven't managed to personally track down the heir of two presumably dead writers? And this heir has apparently not even bothered to contact Google himself. Cry me a fucking river. How about you stop and realize how much Google is already doing to support one of the greatest knowledge-preserving enterprises the world has ever seen, and get off your couch and do your own miniscule part to direct the enterprise as it concerns you.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Too late, my spotty little friend. Tell me, should my son be allowed to inherit the business I started, or should it be seized the day after my death and distributed to the masses? If I rent out my house, should he be allowed to collect that rent after I croak? What is so special about intellectual property?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Copyright was established to *encourage* production of intellectual or creative works such that ultimately society as a whole benefits. The carrot to producers of such works was a limited ability to make money through sales of copies. Where does the original intent of copyright say that your son is entitled to make money off your creation? If your son simply inherits your works, where is his incentive to produce? Where is the benefit to society?
Unlike your rented house, which is a non-copyable physical
Comebine this with (Score:2, Interesting)
the new asus ebook reader http://images.google.com/images?q=asus%20ebook%20reader [google.com] and it looks like books are on their way of the floppy.
Re:Comebine this with (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Comebine this with (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
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Re: (Score:2)
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I think barnes and noble and amazon sell them. (Of course not for every book, it is usually collectors editions, etc.)
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Easton Press [eastonpress.com]. Their books are hella expensive, but very good quality. They're sold on a subscription basis.
Barnes & Noble (and probably other publishers) have a few here and there, but they're of inferior quality, in general.
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I figure that top end books will go up in price, while everybody is moving to e-books.
I think so as well - paper books will not go away, but they will become expensive, high-quality collector items, like vinyl records.
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Interns? (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Who in the hell is actually going to do the scanning? I'd be wary of accepting an internship at the Googleplex right about now.
Don't worry. Asok is used to it by now.
Re:Interns? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
a) unbind the book and just feed it through an automatic scanner. This is fast but not good if you are dealing with old, rare books.
b)use a special table that is shaped like a V: you put the spine in the bottom of the V, and open to the first page, then a piece of plexiglass (also shapped like a V) drops down and holds the pages flat while two cameras each snap an image of each page. Th
What about non profits? (Score:5, Interesting)
Will libraries, project gutenberg, etc also be allowed access to these out of copyright files?
Re: (Score:2)
It seems unlikely that they will allow Project Gutenberg any access though.
Re: (Score:2)
The scanning activity is labor and the data in scanned form -- meaning pixels, not text, and text as a product of OCR, not the text of the book (even though, ideally, those are one in the same) is Google's property.
I therefore doubt that Gutenberg can have the files. They can link to them, though.
Can someone else answer this definitively?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The scanning activity is labor
Well, in the US at least, mere labor is insufficient for copyright to arise. Rather, a copyrightable work (or the copyrightable portions thereof) must be original and creative. Here, Google is engaged in slavish copying; they are copying extant works, so their scans are not original, and they are copying as exactly as they can, so they are not creative.
and text as a product of OCR
Again, though, they are copying as exactly as they can manage. This means the machine readable text
One major concern (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
How Is This a Good Thing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't you guys and girl get it?
Google is circumventing copyright law and capturing works that are in the public domain. Going forward, they monetize a previously free work eternally.
If information wants to be free, then how *exactly* is that freeing books?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
To me, information freedom includes diffusivity. If no one actually sees the information, e.g. a pile of books sitting in a disused corner of a library, it is not "free". Google is allowing these books to be seen, through digitization and online availability, and asking to be reimbursed the labor cost.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If a work is in the public domain, then it is no longer protected by copyright law in regards to the possibility of circumventing it. What they are doing is creating a derivative work of a public domain work (which they are free to do, as the original owner no longer has rights in regard to how the materials are used), which they will then own copyright on until such time as that expires and their scans/ocr of the original text enters the public domain, at which point you are free to use their materials to
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How Is This a Good Thing? (Score:4, Insightful)
How can one circumvent copyright law for books in the "public domain"? If they are in the public domain, they are free to anyone.
What you meant to say, was they are making previously unavailable books that are still under copyright available to everyone. They are even providing competitors with access to the works that Google spent a fortune to scan. Nothing prevents Amazon or Microsoft from scanning these books themselves and working out a similar agreement with the authors guild, but they don't want to invest the money since they are already so far behind.
In the end, everyone (including the authors) benefits because these books will once again be available to the public as they were intended.
Parent
It happens all the time already (Score:2)
Google saw the writing on the wall, they were going to lose, and they were taking a huge beating in the press while losing, and an even bigger one when they would eventually lose. So they did what most companies do, try to find a settlement.