The Google Deadline is approaching and most UK writers still have little or no idea what’s going on.

People, seriously. You do need to understand this.

In chronological order, here’s what I’ve said before:

1. I don’t know what to do, but I don’t like this, and here’s why. [If you've come here from Benedicte Page's Bookseller piece, start with this one. Oh, and hello!]

2. I opted out, and so should you.

3. It’s huge and it’s happening too fast and it’s not a good thing. (Lookee, Ma, I’m onna TV!)

4. It’s still happening, you have more time, and above all YES, YOU ARE AFFECTED.

That last one completely freaks me out, by the way. So many people say things like “Oh, well, I’m not published in the US so I’m not affected by the deal.”

Mucker, I hate to break this to you, but that is not the case. Part of the issue was that initially the GBS was going to treat books not commercially available in the US as not commercially available full stop. In other words, when all this kicked off, you were going to be treated as an out-of-print book in the US for the purposes of the GBS, which meant you were digitisable unless you specifically said no. That has changed somewhat, but take this on board now and save yourself some grief later: if you were published anywhere in the world, in any language, before January last year, there is a good chance you are affected by the deal.

[Usual caveat: I'm not a lawyer. I'm not even an expert. I'm just a loudmouth who's bothered to read all this stuff.]

Basic Pros and Cons:

Pros:

More access to information (for people in the US only, initially, because the copyright issue is infinitely more complicated outside the US owing to the tapestry of laws across the EU and the rest of the world).

Hard-to-find and Out Of Print books will be available through the Google service.

Authors can profit somewhat from the Long Tail.

Books which may otherwise be lost or ignored because their copyright is indeterminate or the rightsholder cannot be found (“orphans works”) will be preserved digitally and made available.

Cons:

The mechanism which makes it possible for orphan works to be displayed is unique to Google – no other company could use the exemption; further, it is by definition an opt-out solution – rightsholders have to opt out or be part of the deal. That runs counter to the whole ethos of copyright, which is that if you want to use copyright material you go and make a deal with the rightsholder. There will be consequences.

This is a US-specific court case. It’s not even a legislative process, which can be queried and debated – it’s an end run around the appropriate mechanisms and it will affect the entire world. It’s not appropriate for a US court to define the arena – that’s a job for Congress in the US in the first place and international treaty in the second. That legislative process arguably really needs to happen, too – many people feel copyright is not doing its job in the digital world.

It could also be a rightsgrabbers’ charter; strip away Google’s still moderately well-loved brand and imagine it with someone else… pick your least favourite media giant. Still happy with the “we’ve done this, sue us if you don’t like it” approach? Hm, no, nor am I.

Libraries aren’t universally happy, either – and they’re supposed to be among the beneficiaries. A quick (Google) search will show you the various concerns, but among them is the changing relationship between library and user: under the GBS, libraries have theoretically to police payments for printing materials from the service, where before that was the responsibility of the individual.

Also, digital archiving isn’t necessarily the best way to preserve books. Formats come and formats go, but paper stays. Paper is also more durable in many ways than a digital file. And do you want all those books de facto owned by one private company? Sure, Google’s nice enough now – but suppose the shareholders change and the board moves on and Google gets merged with a more traditional company. Suppose that company decided to raise prices – they’d still be the only source for a lot of that information. You’d have to go to them. If this is really about public service, let’s make the scanned archive a public asset.

And finally…

People have compared this (endlessly) to the arrival of the Gutenberg Printing Press. I find that incredibly weird. Gutenberg was a moment of massive decentralisation – the printing press meant that you didn’t have to be a churchman to produce a book. Heresies, slanders, sciences, pornographies and political radicalisms flourished in the post-Gutenberg world. This isn’t the same thing at all. As I said just now, it’s a concentration of information in the hands of one provider. That that provider is not currently prone to censorship (well, not now that it’s had a spat with China) does not mean it will always be a safe pair of hands for our cultural history. As the Amazon/Orwell incident shows, it’s scary what can happen with cloud services and copyright when things aren’t what they should be.

So here’s what you do now…

You go inform yourself, of course. You check out Grimmelmann, Samuelson, and Spraggs. You Twitter with @lynnchu. You’ve got until Jan 28th 2010 – that’s a little over two weeks from today. Plenty of time to get a grip on the discussion. Because this is not a small thing. It is a big thing. A very, very big thing, and you have a unique opportunity here to be part of something remarkable – whichever side of the argument you choose. The only really sad thing is to have no opinion and no voice.

[**UPDATE**: I've been directed to the Society of Authors website for their view. They come out in favour, and they've chosen not to engage - at least on the site - with the issues of copyright and so on which may arise out of this. I accept entirely the appeal of the deal; as you'll see from my earlier posts, I really don't think this is an easy decision. I do, however, wish they'd given a little more space to the possible downsides - from what they've put up, you'd think this was clean and simple and it really isn't. If, in ten years, we're looking at a ghastly cockup of horror and regret, I will not refrain from telling them "I told you so" because I'm frankly not that nice a person.]

So, good. You inform yourself, and that done – if you’re me – you take a moment to revel in being lined up alongisde Ursula K. Le Guin, who was one of my favourite authors when I was a kid and whose writing I will now revisit as soon as I have time. She’s written to the Author’s Guild – one of the architects of the GBS – to tell them she’s resigning:

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.

Seriously, she could recruit for the literary marines. “Are you gonna let this happen, scribbler? Are you gonna take this lying down? Are you? ARE YOU, MAGGOTS!?”

No, Ma’am. Hell if I am.