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DANIELSON: Sure, I'm Chris Danielson. I am the Director of Public Relations National
Federation of the Blind. >> So, Chris, what do you--?
>> DANIELSON: We're going to hear that the Google book settlement not only was a reasonable
business decision from the perspective of the parties, but also will do a great social
good and among the great social good people do is to make books more available to groups
that are traditionally not had access to them. And, there was no group that that's more true
off than blind Americans. Blind Americans have access to a very limited selection of
books. And so, we feel that the congress is going to learn that this settlement will give
us access to millions and more books, and that we will have in fact more access than
we'd ever had in human history. >> Good if you guys have--your role.
>> PLATT: Oh, I'm Judy Platt. I am the Director of Communications for the Association of American
Publishers. I also directly--the settlements when we announced it last the 4th of October,
it seemed then and it still seems now an amazingly important and beneficial arrangement for everybody.
>> Are you surprised by the amount of the extension and interest of the settlement has
received over the last several months? >> PLATT: Well, I think some of them have
been feeding on itself. I think there has been a fair amount of disinformation and misinformation
that came out about what the settlement does; what the settlement does into, and so people
started responding. I think there are, there were concerns that were raised. We couldn't
do everything in the settlement; it's a process. Even if the settlement is accepted by the
court and I hope it will be. There are things as we go wrong then we're going to have to
be worked out. The structure … >> Allan, what's your take on the--how the
hearing sounds so far? >> ALLAN: Well, you know, so congressional
hearings are in theory and exploration of the issues, but they don't know it's work
out that way. And I say actually this hearing has been a pretty good exploration of the
issues when you turn from both sides, strongly become the opinions of both sides. But, I
think, what's been really interesting and helpful is that a lot of the members of congressional
on panel have actually listened to the arguments. So I think they've realized that even though
it's important for congress to be looking at this. They're also understanding that the
public have [INDISTINCT] in settlement. So it's been a reasonably good...
>> All right, we're here with Dan Clancy, an engineer, Director for Google book stands.
Tell us about the announcement that was made today?
>> CLANCY: What we're trying to do is create an open platform that supports the existing
ecosystem of lots of different bookstores, so it will help increase competition because
your physical bookstore will be able to compete. Because what we're doing is providing a platform
by which people will be able to buy these digital books and Google will be the one responsible
for maintaining the infrastructure that serves these books to users, authenticating users
and making sure that these books that you buy are still there by 10, 15 years from now.
And so, let me get to the announcement that David made today. What David said was basically
that our strategy with [INDISTINCT] in the settlement is we're going to extend what were
already planning to do for new print books and books going forward, so those are out
of print that we get through the settlement. And that is...