Ivan Hoffman [Internet law, publishing, copyright and trademark attorney]: "There is ample precedent for the structure of Google's settlement with the Authors Guild. It certainly reflects emerging technology and, as indicated below, will need to be reflected in modified agreements.

For many decades, going back into the early 20th century, music rights holders collectively established ASCAP and BMI as "performing rights organizations" to license small performing rights to the rights holders' compositions to locales and other parties who wanted to use the same, such as nightclubs, radio and later television and now via the Internet. The organizations licensed the compositions either via a blanket license or, for certain "featured performances," on a composition by composition basis.

So the creation of a "Book Rights Registry," which will collect and administer the use of rights, is a structure that has been used before. As with ASCAP and BMI, however, it will be up to the individual rights holders to register with the Registry.

Book publishing agreements, and other agreements dealing with the use of the content of books, will have to be modified to provide for this form of licensing revenue. Clearly if the license to Google is work-specific (i.e. the functional equivalent of the "featured performance"), the publishing or other agreement will have to reflect the split between the author (or any other royalty participant) and publisher. This is subject to an arms-length negotiation. However, in the event a publisher enters into a blanket license covering multiple works, the revenue between the publisher and the author or other royalty participant would have to be allocated according to a formula. For publishers who have been using form agreements, whether copied from a book, CD or obtained from colleagues or otherwise, these forms should be reviewed by an experienced publishing attorney."