In a just universe, we would be able to bill Google for every hour we've wasted dealing with this crap.

I tried to claim one of my stories using their "Unknown" option since I don't have page numbers in front of me. It spits back an error message. I guess they're just taunting us with that option, and you're not supposed to actually use it.

Urge to strangle...rising....

March on their corporate headquarters? Petition?

Nothing media based would work--the anti-copyright crowd have everyone who isn't in the barrel convinced that the barrel is a gold-plated, mink-lined luxury condo.

Makes me want to go tilting at Google's windmills....

I don't want to tilt at them. I want to drop the publicity equivalent of high-explosives on them. Barrages of artillery from afar kind of publicity.

I lack the publicity firepower.

for the most part I like google and believe they have good intentions. I'm getting the impression that they did not think through the impact of their approach on all existing copyright holders and could stand to be better informed. Perhaps they could use a nicely written complaint... after poking around a bit... I'm aiming to use Contact Us off the books.google.com

http://books.google.com/support/bin/request.py?hl=en-us

thought I'd share in case anyone else was similarly inclined.

Thanks. Well, it's been obvious from day one that they didn't think through their position with respect to copyright and copyright holders...I'm not sure being better informed than having people suing you for copyright violation will help, but I'll try. AFTER I finish claiming my works using their forms, because there's a hard deadline for that.

Otherwise they assume I've agreed to let them do whatever they want.

This is just sick. If Google want to publish still copyrighted material it should be their ¤%&¤% duty to find the author and ask for their permission.

Except, of course, the whole situation is ludicrous. Why should any author want to give away their work, getting nothing in return?

Well...I've given things away, and I've allowed the use of things for specific purposes without payment (e.g. a story to be reprinted in a limited-circulation newsletter.) Sometimes you just do things like that. I wasn't ever paid for the plays I wrote for a community group, either.

But it was my choice. Not someone else's choice.

But yeah, Google should do their due diligence and ask writers for permission.

Stealing Connery's LJ...

This is probably something I could do because I have fewer editions of this and that than you do, but I didn't mess with ISBNs at all. I put in my name and the book title, and Google brought up all the editions; I checked 'em as claimed.

Just in case that helps (dare I hope!). Because that sounds *awful.*

--Doranna
BeagleMom

Unfortunately, Google didn't work that well for me. For instance, did not bring up all the editions of each book (large print Speed of Dark, any of the Easton Press editions, to name a few) and did not find most of the anthologies in which I have stories. Like most of us, the bibliography I keep has books by title--does not include a listing for each format. It shouldn't have to--the copyright covers the whole thing--but Google has digitized some of my books in their earliest OOP format and then claimed that the book was not commercially available. Well, no, the 1988 Sheepfarmer's Daughter with the typo right *there* was succeeded by a later edition with the typo removed...but it's the same story (and another typo was removed in the hc edition of the Deed.) If Google were to digitize and then distribute just one "not commercially available" format for each book (such as the large-print Speed of Dark) then they would be directly competing with the very commercially available other formats.

It's a FFTARD. Rude expression but very exact description familiar to military folks. "Rolling doughnut" for short.

Back to work. Still on the first page of actually turning things off and removing them but I think (hope) everything's claimed...oh...dagnabbit. Just looked up and realized I haven't done either of the Far Starts Wars anthologies yet. ::headdesk:: Why was I writing so much?????

For those of us who are nowhere NEAR as well known as you, this has been a very enlightening discussion. Thank you for taking the time during all the crap you're having to go through. There are lots of us (I suspect) lurking and learning.

One thing to learn is that corporate slogans mean diddly-squat when it comes to real life.

ASIN is some kind of amazon ID number. Does google need the 13-digit version of the ISBN? The same thing sometimes happens with the register program in the bookstore I work at, & sometimes I can get around it by using the other form of the ISBN. Of course, I'm not sure how you figure out the last digit change...

Good luck.

thanks to the kind soul who thought of looking at B&N, I found a 13 digit one that worked.

What I'm searching for now is the ISBN of _Siege of Arista_, ed. Bill Fawcett, published by ROC (of Penguin Group) in 1991. I can't find my copy. I would also need the page numbers of my story "In Suspect Terrain."

Also if anyone has a copy of Women at War, ed. by Lois Bujold, I need the page numbers of my story "Hand to Hand" in it.