Google Book settlement leads to Ursula Le Guin resignation from Authors Guild
Ursula Le Guin, whose membership in the Authors Guild dates back to 1972, has resigned from the organization, citing her unhappiness with the role the Guild played in the Google Book 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,” Le Guin wrote in her letter of resignation. “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.”
Le Guin is keeping her membership in the National Writers Union and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, both of which have opposed the settlement. Le Guin concedes that while they don’t have the clout of the Guild, they possess sounder judgment.
The Authors Guild said it was sorry that Le Guin resigned, but said the agreement was a good one for all authors. It offered to discuss the agreement with Le Guin, and noted the deal came after the lawsuit it brought against Google to defend authors’ copyrights.
Ursula Le Guin was born Ursula Kroeber in 1929 in Berkeley, California. Her mother was a writer and her father an anthropologist. With a love of languages, she studied French and Italian literature at Radcliffe College. In 1953, in Paris, she married the historian Charles A. Le Guin. A very private person, Ursula Le Guin has three children, three grandchildren and lives in Portland, Oregon. She has published six books of poetry, twenty novels, over a hundred short stories, four collections of essays, eleven books for children, and four volumes of translation and says of the work of authorship: “Writing is my craft. I honour it deeply. To have a craft, to be able to work at it, is to be honoured by it.”
Posted: December 24th, 2009
Author: Lee
Categories: Ursula Le Guin
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