>> our budget was $13 billion, i don't know what it is today. probably 60, i don't really know. i wanted them to stay. the budget that we had, the 13 billion, when all the

complaints were coming, and one thing i always insisted on is that when the charge was made by a reporter in a column or a letter to the times, any of the other newspapers, that i thought was unfair, false, unfair, i insisted that we correct the record by a letter from me, if possible, an op-ed that most of the time they wouldn't take an op-ed that they would take a letter. and the reason was that if you don't send a letter of some sort when a reporter's column, it's just plain wrong. the next reporter will use that column if it's not been contested as fact. and while many times reporters will not acknowledge their

error, the letter that i sin appears in the morgue which they refer to when they write their articles. and they will at least see our opposition and question what was said before. so, probably unlike most mayors, i used responsive to fairly well. and i still do. if i see something that's unfair i go seek to correct it. and when i repaired the streets of park avenue people say you are favoring the rich. i said i don't think i'm saving them, but i know that if we don't repair those park avenue streets where the rent is so incredible, they are going to leave. and i was going to take the heat. but more important than that, i had wonderful people that i brought into government,

exceptional. and they are still in government today. the current mayor brought a lot of them back, just as i brought a lot of them back from the lindsay administration. i was not an admirer of john lindsay, although i voted for him. but i was an admirer of the people who worked for his administration. i looked forward every year in the month of december, they chose that month, when the commissioners all get together, 200 commissioners, deputy commissioners, assistant commissioners, and we have a party. and 200 are included and 200 come. and what is so incredible about talking with them is they remember their days as commissioners, deputy

commissioners, as the most vital and satisfying days of their professional lives are just as i do. loved it. and part of that was my management style. my management style was the if i appointed you i believe you knew more about your field than i did otherwise i don't need you. and if you in fact no more and you do the job, i said to each commissioner, you're going to make mistakes and lots of stuff is not going to turnout, but i want you to be innovative and i want you to know that when the press is not -- the press attacks you, as they well, that's their job, i will stand up in the blue room with you and i will take the blame. i will take the blame. i won't let it crush you. that made them feel terrific. it made him feel in charge,

which they were, and it allowed them to be innovative. so i was very lucky in what i did, and i want to make one comment as it relates to what jonathan said. i'm still for the death penalty. let me ask without you having to add to, how many people -- did you follow the case up in connecticut where those three people were murdered? there's no requirement that you speak. [laughter] >> three people raped, women murdered, and they're now going through question as to whether or not they should be executed. i hope to execute them, the one guy, the only one guy that was tried, the next one will be tried shortly. i don't believe the death penalty should be used frequently. i believe it should be used in very special cases. and i've always felt that way.

we've lost the battle. many of you asked people today is a majority in this country for the death penalty, but the major newspapers and lots of people. and i don't fault them, to be on both sides of this issue and be moral, they have won the battle. say, oh, life imprisonment without parole is worse than the death penalty. i don't believe it's worse than the death penalty but it doesn't make any difference. i believe we've lost that battle. it doesn't mean i don't have to give up. i'm not. so i have to speak out about it, and that aspect of it. just one little anecdote and i will turn it back. the first commissioner that i appointed was the police

commissioner, bob mcguire, a great police commissioner. he had never been in the police department. his father had been a detective. he was very much involved in cases involving cops, generally defending them and actions involving shootings that they had engaged in. and i thought it was just marvelous. and when we announced it, and i went out to this press conference, still around only his hair is darker. [laughter] >> ain't real. i said ladies and gentlemen, bob mcguire, new police

commissioner. they said mayor, isn't this just part of the old irish mafia? i turned to bob and mike put my arm on her shoulder and i said bob, you told me you were jewish. [laughter] >> u-turns, puts his arm on my shoulder and says no, mayor, i didn't say that. i told you i looked jewish. into a story. [laughter] >> of course, when i was writing the book i said ed, did you know your second police commissioner was the first african-american police commissioner, grew up speaking yiddish? and he said no. spoke well he had a bad accident. [laughter] >> anyway, the problem, the problem is as you said you took the heat, but when you fixed the

pavement on park avenue and you don't fix the pavement on 120th street because you don't have the money, and you don't have the money for year after year, people start to get angry. and it starts to make you come and becomes a racially divisive issue when -- and it maintains the quality of life for the wealthy and garbage and the pavement, the quality of the streets declined in the -- basic city services decline in the poorest areas. clearly you can't be accused of

plan shrinkage because when the story was all over, you did exactly the opposite. you rebuilt the city. but it didn't look that way in, say, 1983. how did you attempt to deal with that anger and with that division in the city? >> i will just respond and be briefly so you can continue. there were constant attacks, you're balancing the budget on the backs of the poor. that was a line. in fact, greg horton who was an advocate with another academic wrote a book. and in their press release they said, any balance a budget on the backs of the poorest, and in

the press release is in the book. he said in a press release but i called him in. i said we're in your book, because i knew it wasn't there, do you support this premise that we balance the budget on the backs of the poor. well, mayor, we didn't set. so i said, but it is in your press release and that's where the reporters will use. why don't you go down and say it's not in your book? well, without really good at press relations. really? [laughter] >> and as result of that, i never, ever participated in anything greg horton was in charge of. and he was in charge of the citizens budget commission. they would have dinners and it would invite me, mayors, the guys on the block. know, i will not come. so we always had to fight that.

but on a positive level what i said to our budget people was, show how much goes to the poor. well, i had a wonderful budget director, tim a, tinbergen, just wonderful. came from missouri. in fact, i picked him because he was with morgan stanley i think and he had been lent to the city. weird wonderful people in the budget office. i have probably six people i could have picked. i picked him for the following reason. i said, the congress which thought me because i was there any at to know me, tip o'neill said in the legislation, that jonathan referred to, lending

the city over $1 billion, they did it because of me. they wanted me to succeed. but i said they don't like new yorkers. they hate new yorkers. they hate new yorkers because they think they are all jewish. i mean, it's a fact. it's not anti-semitism. i'm not making that allegation. but they don't like the attitude that new yorkers have. it's rash for them. so i said to myself, if we want their go operation, you've got to get somebody that they identify with. and they will automatically believe. and i said this guy from missouri they will believe him. in addition, he looks like a second lieutenant from the british army in the first world war. so that's aside from his brilliance, they were all

brilliant, there were six or so as i said i could have taken. he was someone i believe they would automatically believe. midwest, that sort of thing. and it worked out that way. so i asked him, i said how do we convince the people, that we're not balancing the budget on the backs of the poor? i mean, we're allocating as best we can. he said easy, mayor. he said, 25% of the budget goes to education. 25. the school system was 83% black, or black and hispanic. whites had fled the system. so 25% of our budget, total budget was going basically to minority's and a were the poor

in the city, overwhelming. he said another 25% goes to the human resources administration. it goes to poor people. so that's 50% of the budget right off the top goes to poor people. and then if you take every other service like sanitation, we put more money into the poor neighborhoods because there's more trash to pick up. they don't have concierge people. and so the stuff is out on the street. or the fire department. there's more fires in the poor parts of this town than the are in the rich part of this town. cops, you by the cops were the

crying is. the crime is in the poor neighborhoods, and it's the poor people who are being killed and assaulted it and the cops were there to save them. so if you go through every one of the approximate 50 services the city provides, overwhelmingly the monies spent were going to help support poor people. senior citizens, they are poor. large numbers are minority, large numbers our white. but they are poor. after you put all those figures together, showing that more than two-thirds of the operating budget was spent on poor people, overwhelmingly minority, he said we've made the case but nobody is going to believe it because it's not what they want to hear.

>> is it just not what they want to hear or is it the difference between looking at the situation from those numbers and the lived difficult school in harlem, or on the upper west side for that matter, but lived experience of having vacant lots that are full of garbage, and the cities and making the owners clean it up? the lived experience of not having those services is different from the way it looks on the budget, which you know because you were out there. and i think that's, you know, it wasn't enough money to do what you and i and the people who were living in those neighborhoods would like to see done. and there never will be. never will be. but we did the best we could with the monies that were available, and of the monies

that were available, not enough. two-thirds of that money went to help the poor people of the stem. and we couldn't do better than that but we never expected we would convince everybody, but i this on the record and it is on the record. >> by the way, just on the report and thing, as with many things i interviewed ray portman for the book. and so both versions of the story are in the book. spent what did he say that is different than what did i -- [laughter] >> what did he say? >> i think he said it's not in a press release. budgetary the truth i would have to look it up in index and i don't think we have time to do that. >> i am telling you he said to me i don't think he would do not that we'd didn't put it in the book, we put in a press release. and when i asked him to tell the press that, he said no, we don't

feel comfortable with the press, something along those lines. that's what he said. >> let's see. where should we go? probably one of the most difficult, one of the most difficult decisions that ed had to make with -- and one of the most difficult agencies to handle in the administration before about people who could run the agency went through several people who were failures at running the agency, and it was probably the toughest position to fill of all the agencies. and a key one, health care, was probably, and one of the theses of the book was that health care

costs and the failure of the various federal administrations in the 1970s and 1980s to federalize the cost of health care as ed koch proposed in 1980, and as the democratic party advocated in his platform in 1980, really contributed mightily to the loss of the fiscal crisis. now, any budget is what we call overdetermined. that means that they're a whole bunch of factors, even anyone of which by itself can push the budget over the limit. but if you look at the cost of, and this is document in my book, if you look at what new york city was paying through its share from medicaid plus the amount of subsidy it paid to the health and hospital corporation, the city hospitals agency, to pay for care for uninsured

people, that ran for every year of the transit administration, that ran from 40% of the budget gap. every couple of years exceeded 100% of the budget gap. in other words, for some years entire budget gap in the city's financial plan can be attributed to paying for costs for health care costs for uninsured people. in order to bring those costs down, very difficult decisions have to be made. no politician wants to close hospitals. hospitals under politicians want to open hospital. some of the city's hospitals like everything else the city was running were in very, very bad shape indeed. now, there was a hospital in harlem. it was historically important for the black community because it was the first hospital in new york city about african-american

physicians admitting privileges. and this was a huge milestone, and it was controversial. another historically black hospital, a private one, arthur logan hospital had just closed a few months before. under bean. and so other mayors had kept it open even though the quality of care their for emergency services, was not great. as ed will tell you, the chief medical officer of the hospital was a dentist. and it wasn't -- the building wasn't accessible to the handicapped. so there were managerial reasons for closing this hospital. but in a political context of

harlem, for various political reasons, and i go into this in the book, a lot of it has to do with the transition from a segregated health care system to an integrated health care system and some of the implications of that are both black patients who were the black middle class, this was a very overtly sensitive topic. and sotomayor lindsay had kept it open. mayor bean had kept it open. and wind and was running for reelection -- i'm sorry, when he was running for reelection in a runoff in 1977 and ed caught the support of the main political leadership in harlem, patterson, charlie rangel, karl and other leaders, fred samual, and in part because he had promised to keep sydenham open. he gets to be mayor in seize the

full situation and he says this is a terrible hospital. we're going to close it. but this has horrible political repercussions in terms of his relationship with the black political establishment because they had the constituency to represent and they had gotten a promise from ed, and as they sought he broke that promise. >> that's true. >> and the result was enormous, not only enormous demonstrations at the time, there were sit ins and hospital, big demonstrations around the hospital. and eventually it closed. but it created a tremendous -- it created a lingering distrust and lingering bad relations between koch and leaders of the black community.

charlie rangel in the course of this -- the rhetoric got quite over the top. charlie rangel at one point compared mayor koch to bull connor. because he was mad. and what he was really mad about was, you know, he told at one point you made me a district leader again. i have to be here fighting for the dam hospital and i could be a lot more effective paying attention to the business of the ways and means committee in washington for the city. so, ed has a strong sense of justice. would seem to be the right managerial decision. but at the same time in terms of the politics of the city, in terms of the politics of race in the city, it was a decision that political thought that the 6.0

is a would have cost to fix up the hospital, which eventually actually they spent more in an affluent time someone spent a six-month dollars and there's a clinic that lumbee runs in the basement of what is now condos. >> it was a very painful moment in time. you have to understand that new york city then had seven people -- city hospitals and no other city in the country, chicago, l.a., any city had more than one. we had 17. and as was alluded to a moment ago, the payment to the hospitals by the city, unlike in the private sector, a hospital can't manage its bills, it goes into bankruptcy. the city hospitals new we would bail them out with city tax

funds. and that's what we did. and jonathan conveyed it was an enormous impacting aspect, which could have put the city into ultimate bankruptcy. not the hospital but the city. and i was told by our professionals that for 30 years every mayor, wagner, lindsay, bean, had everyone of them have said we're going to close this hospital. and then because of the counter pressures and the anchors said no. and we decided that we would open for clinics in place of the hospital. reputation that probably not

accurate, but the cops would say if i'm shocked in the foyer of sydenham, get me out of there. [laughter] >> that's what they said. and the other probable myth but nevertheless believed was that no one had ever survived thoracic surgery at that hospital. so the medical people said close it. the budget people said close it. i said okay, i will do it. yes, violating a commitment i made but it doesn't make any sense to keep that commitment and i'm not really violating it because i'm opening for clinics. not like moving medical care from the neighborhood. we are going to provide better medical care. and when we tried to, for example, to upgrade medical care by having the physicians at

sydenham affiliate with columbia presbyterian and go through as though they were a wing of columbia presbyterian and report to the cheese at columbia-presbyterian, the sydenham she said no, we're not going to give up our chiefs, you know? every hospital has achieved in different departments. so it was upgraded, jonathan made reference to it. it didn't have an entrance on the ground floor. you had to carry a stretcher up the staircase to get into the you can't go on that way. so i decided yes, we will close it. well, there was an enormous storm, but the person i felt most badly about was a city

councilman, fred samual, a wonderful man. is now dead. i tried to explain it to him. obviously, he was very nice but -- okay. so we closed it. there were riots in sit ins. we ultimately prevailed. the police commander who went in to take repossession of the hospital which was empty and set -- except for the city and people, we had cut off electricity. he opens the door at midnight. he says don't be afraid, you know me, i'm so-and-so. i won't hurt anybody. he said we're going to take you out and you have to come peacefully. we don't want anybody hurt. this is what he told me happened the next day.

and they said we have the caucus. they came back and said we will go out but you have to carry us out. we're not going to walk out. and one of the sit ins, a minister was very heavy, like about 300 pounds. and he just lays down. and bracy was the commander, a wonderful man, said to him, could you lay down closer to the door? [laughter] >> and he did. and then they said, any television cameras out there? understandably they are getting at but they want a lot of publicity. and achieve didn't lie. he said yes, we have a television camera out there, it was the cops television camera. they were taken out and it was rather peaceful.

now, i attended a seminar where five or six people who it been appointed i governor pataki were examining state hospitals and how many should be closed? it's very expensive every day whether it's occupied or not, it costs money to maintain. and steve berger was the chairman of that particular committee. he was at this seminar. and i was present because they were celebrating the museum of the city of new york had an exhibit. and they said do you have a question? i was in the audience and i said yes, did i do the right thing in closing sydenham hospital?

every one of them said absolutely. but i didn't. why? because the symbolic value to the black community was far more important than -- i think it was actually $9 million that we saved, but it was the most costly per patient hospital in the system, with the worst hospital care. i could've been a hero in the black community if i had saved it. instead, the medical care is bad, we're wasting $9 million. i was on several programs a long time ago which i said, i said -- they said what's the worst thing you said, in terms of you regret, and i said closing sydenham. nobody ever asked me to question, and i volunteered to

because i believed it was the worst thing i ever did. from the point of view of symbolism is sometimes more important than substance. >> now, unfortunately nobody told us what the time limit is. so i think it's a quarter of eight i think we should take some questions. >> mr. mayor, if someone asked me, a close friend who left town at the end of your regime and came back in 2010, asked me what changes have taken place in new york in terms of the pace, the social life, the problems, the general koppel and visceral changes that you can observe during that period from mayor koch is term of office to today, would you comment on what those might be?

thank you. >> first, new york city, new york city is so far ahead of any other city in america, as it relates coming out of the recession, being ultimately able to resume where it was when it was at the peak of its career in a very positive way. when you look at the city today, you read that 10% of all jobs created in the united states in the last quarter were created in new york city. that's incredible. it's just incredible. i think new york city's population is about 3% of the united states, and so we are way ahead in terms of prosperity, current and yet to come. but the most important thing that mayor bloomberg has done,

which he gets very little credit for, is he has changed the whole tone of race relations in the city. to the best of my knowledge, there simply is no racial problem in this city. there was, not just that which we refer to undermine administration, for reasons i've given you, but under giuliani, under david dinkins. it was there. mike bloomberg changed it. and the question always will exist, how did he do it? it's his personality. he's not -- he's a man of vision buddies also a person -- but he's also a person of great technician and does not show great emotion. and that's helpful.

that's simply helpful. it's not a sacrifice to go say howdy did this once. early on when he entered city hall, al sharpton was coming out and he went over to him and introduced himself. that was wonderful to do. al sharpton and i are very good friends. whenever we are together, the first thing he will say to people is he made me famous. he arrested me. [laughter] >> and it is true. in 1978 he came down to city hall. he didn't have an appointment. i said i will see him anyway. i went into the blue room, yes, what can i do? i didn't know him well. and he brought in about 25 other black ministers. and he said, we are here with a petition that we want you to sign. and i said can i read it?

now. i can't take it with me? read it now. all right. so i read. and it is you promised to give all summer jobs, federal government provided 60,000 summer jobs to the city, which were minimum wage and what i do to change, what they did before me, i put it all on the computer and it was a lottery where as before when i came in you would assign the job the people and they dole them out. and i remember a priest said to me, we know who the good kids are. we want to give those jobs out. so i want to mock him and i said, father, there are no bad kids. of course, that's a lie. but the fact is that i thought fairness required it be

distributed on a lottery basis. sign up everybody, 120,000 kids who signed. only 60,000 would get jobs. lottery. no favoritism. so i said i can't do that. i can't do that. then he said, the second one was that you commit yourself, i think it was $50 billion in reparations to black community for slavery. so i try to persuade him from continuing by saying, let me take it, i'll get back to you. know, you'll sign it, i'm going to sit down and not let anybody in and out of your office, three other ministers jointed. i said you can't do that. you can picket outside on the steps. know. he sits down. so the police officer is standing there, and i say to them, to the police officer, remove them.

well, nobody at city hall that there've been told to remove anybody. and the police officer whispers to me, what if they resist? [laughter] >> i say, have you never heard the word arrest? arrest them. and they were arrested. then i get telegrams from every member of congress. how dare you arrest these floor -- these for black ministers? how dare you? this is crazy stuff. you can't allow lawlessness at city hall. and the prevention of access by others who wanted to see the mayor and other commissioners who are in the hall. but in any event, sharpton and i over the years became good friends and i worked on and are currently working on a project.

and when he ever talks about me, he says one, made me famous, too, never stop talking to me. which was true. i always reached out. i'm very proud of that. so, too long an answer to a very short question. the city is in far greater shape, good shape than it's ever been outside of the effects of the recession. but compared with the rest of the united states. >> great, next question. [inaudible] >> also, i'm deaf partially so i need a mic back. >> i want to talk about the very difficult situation with governor bumpers. you handled it well. i just want to tell you that.

>> eleanor bumpers situation was simply this. this was a woman who was behind in her rent, a recluse perceived as in need of mental assistance, who room or had it was cooking lye to resist the cops who might be coming into her apartment to the victor. and they came in -- to eject her. and i think it was three cops who came in and she attempted to stab with a big knife, and under the protocol there was one officer who had i think the shotgun that was the protocol. and who, when she sought to stab

a police officer, he shot her and he killed her. very sad. terrible. the case -- every time there is, not just the killing, a shooting by a cop, a ghost is district attorney. and my recollection is, it was a long time ago, but there was an indictment and a trial, and the cops, the one who shot was exonerated. now, the police officer was found to have protected another police officer from the injured, which was his job. now, why was it that there wasn't some of the way to deal with this? by the way, she was clearly in need of help, her bathtub was filled with feces. i mean, it was awful. my recollection was she said

ronald reagan put it there. >> she was clearly someone who needed a good deal of help, and the background of the case i think was really tragic. and i think one of the reasons people reacted strongly against the administration at the time was because clearly the social differences had not been held up the way it should have been to help somebody who was in that -- >> well, i would say the reason was we didn't use another method -- there was some who would say just let her stay there. how do you let somebody stay there in their feces and not eating? i mean, that's not the humane way to approach someone who's in need of assistance. but what they did before, before

they changed their protocol was they used nets and they would throw a net over somebody. and then people said you can't, that's so dehumanizing. but it was safe. you through a net over somebody and he didn't have to worry about how you would remove them. but they ended the protocol, and now i'll bet their protocol is let them starve into the come out on their own. probably as -- >> i don't know what the current practice is. >> i don't either but probably that's what it is. >> could you comment on the mayor having a third term and everything that -- >> i support that. i from the very beginning, i was for term limits but always for 12 years. and i am for that today, but it's going to revert back to two terms.

now, mayor bloomberg chose to have the city council changes law created by referendum. people think that's terrible. it's not terrible at all. a law we have says that you can adapt -- adopt a law by city council, by referendum, or you can adopted by having the state legislature just impose its will, which it often does on the city of new york. i thought that it was important that you be given an opportunity to run. and what was interesting was the outcome. the outcome was, everybody thought he was going to do a runaway election, and i think he won by four or five points is my recollection. the reason is very simple. at least as i see it. a huge number of people were very angry that he didn't seek

to have a referendum change the law, and they wanted to punish them, but they knew if they went to the polls they would have to vote for him because there was no question that he was far and away the best equipped to serve the city. in my judgment is the judgment of most people, so that's a huge number of people didn't go to the polls because they wanted to punish him and deprive them of their vote. second large number that he lost were those who said what does he need me for? he's 15 points ahead according to the polls. you will wind and we. why should i have to go to the polls. so you take those groups, he was the pride of them and suffered a very small margin of victory with the dollars spent. but i voted for him.

i supported him and i campaigned for him. >> okay, we have time for i think one more quick question and that's it. >> your honor, you have a famous question that you've asked many, many years. and i think most of us here will agree, not all because it's new york, but i think that most -- >> give me their names. [laughter] >> i think most of us will agree that you are doing just fine. [applause] >> thank you very, very much. >> thank you all for coming. >> thank you. >> this event was hosted by the tenement museum in new york city. for more information visit

tenement.org. >> well, with federal judge rejection of the 2008 google books settlement, the future of a complete online library is in question. joining us now to discuss this issue is sarah weinman, the news editor of publishers market place. if you could begin by giving us a brief overview of what the google books settlement was and who are the parties involved? >> sure. the google books settlement arose from the original lawsuit was filed by the association of american publishers, and the office gilbert objected to the fact that in their view google was scanning primarily out of print and orphan work, those works whose copyright status was not entirely known. and they felt that this scanning was infringement. and they didn't like that so they sued.

as it made its way through the courts, however, the parties decide to great what was called the google books settlement. and what that would entail was coming up with some means of giving copyright holders some monetary value for their work. and what they elected to do was to create what's known as an opt out process, where its authors did not want their works to be scanned by google, they could write in and opt out. and those who did have to work scanned by google would get about $60 per work. as it made its way through court, judge chin last heard about this approximately 14 months ago. and then he was confirmed to the second court of appeals after which nobody knew exactly what was going on with the settlement. and when the news came in last week that he rejected it, that sort of great help weight of surprise. >> what was judged change

rationale? >> the ultimate we believe that the settlement was not fair, adequate or reasonable. he felt that the numerous objections that were launched by about 6800 authors as well as 500 of the parties were substantial enough to rule that the way the settlement was created contravened current copyright law and it was perhaps a better way to do. so in his youth he thought the majority of the objections could be mollified in seven opt out process using opt in process for copyright holders could say no, i want to be part of this settlement. instead of assuming that unless you opt out that you're automatically in. he didn't like that and he felt that this was not a good way of doing it. the other portion that i addressed earlier related, he felt this settlement could not adequate to address this.

and instead this was a matter that should be taken up by congress. >> so, sarah weinman, during this entire legal process google has been scanning books into its system. what happens to those books? >> that's a very good question, and, in fact, because the settlement has now been rejected no one really knows what the next move will be. there is supposed to be a status meeting in court on april 25 at 4:30 at which time i guess the parties are going to stake their claims as to why they should come up with a revised settlement. they are both on record of saying. and google will have to figure out exactly what they want. there are multiple ways of looking at it. some commentators say that this actually hurts google because this puts their scanning ability end up. other commentators say that no, this impact is fine because in

another separate program which is the creation of google be books, google is already scanning works better in a copyright with various permissions. you can go to google e-book site online and download for a price any current e-book that is probably available for sale. you can go to various independent retailers that our affiliate with the google books tour and do it that way. they do it through what's known as a partner program where publishers and authors as well have opted in in order to make the books available for sale. so there's some rationale that by implementing and instituting this particular program that this is perhaps a model for what the google books settlement should be. the other thing, the sun was supposed to create what's known as the right registry and google and publishers spent i think roughly between 12 and 15 million already in terms of getting this up and running. now, that's a medal because how can you have a right registry for some of the technically

doesn't entirely exist? so it remains to be seen with the aap and the ag relaunch their lawsuit, well of the parties litigate? if you want to continue the suit? either it will have a better feeling on april 25 spent what was google's reaction at the american association of publishers reaction to judge chin's suggestion that they use an opt in system? >> both the aap and the ag were understandably disappointed that the settlement was not approved. but both parties seem to express optimism that they could find a way into the settlement. like, for example, ceo son charging issued a statement on behalf of the aap a century said they are prepared that a culture plaintiff entered into a narrow settlement along the lines to be convinced of the groundbreaking opportunities and help other parties will do as well. and the current president of the

ag, he said along the lines of regardless of what the outcome of the discussion far, readers want access to on of able work. office in every market they can get there fast to be way to make some kind of a settlement happened to make these works available. so the hope that they can, in fact, arrive at a settlement. with respect to google, they were as i said kind of disappointed that they essentially said they hope to be able to continue their scanning work and make as many books available. so essentially it's disappointing but cautious optimism seems to be raining today. >> sarah weinman, what about google's competitors, amazon, microsoft, yahoo!, et cetera, what was the reaction? >> to the best of my knowledge i think the reaction was mostly lodged with in court documents. from what i understand though they were certainly pleased the

settlement was not approved because each of those parties or certainly the majority of these parties did lodge objections with the core. amazon had essentially said that if you give the google this unfair vantage, how is this good for copyright? that was another big issue of judge chin, which is it's a good idea to have a digital library, to have worked scanned, but should google be the decision-maker of the entity that decides how it is scanned, would be scanned, which books are essentially made available? and i think in judge chin's opinion he felt very uncomfortable that one entity could have that much power and an unfair advantage. >> riso in "the new york times" the director of the harvard university library wrote that

the decision is a victory for the public good, but insisted quote, we should not abandon google's dream of making all the books in the world available to everyone. instead, we should build a digital public library which would provide these digital copies free of charge to readers. is there any viability to that? >> it sounds like a wonderful idea. the only entity that has stepped up his google. and, unfortunately, especially with the current economic state of play, the priority for digital public library that wasn't already in progress i suspect is not the highest of priorities. i mean, already living among that was spent on the rise register alone which might have to be abandoned. are in the best case scenario take. so as a result google with the tremendous market cap the have wills really one of the only

corporation or only entities public or private that had the clout and the muscle to be able to make this. i think ultimately that was why the settlement was a good idea for the aap and the ag because they recognize there is value in the work will did and they wanted to get something off the ground and that can be built on and built on. will the library system be able to come together for a nonprofit entity when they're facing such massive cutbacks at the state and federal level? i'm not entirely certain. so even though there's discipline and cautious optimism about reviving settlement, there's also understandable skepticism that this can happen. so some people are looking at it as a win-win. i'm looking at it as more of a neutral potentially great loss, i suppose, if something doesn't move forward. >> will judge chin continue to have a role in this issue and?

>> from what i understand he will not, especially now that he has moved on to the second circuit court of appeals. this was one alas outstanding cases on his docket. the 14 months, seemed a little long but in light of the complexity, the issues that were raised, it makes sense in hindsight. so then the issue becomes who will take this up, will it have to be litigated from scratch? will it be heard again? are the other court cases that may factor into how what kind of potential outcome is reached at a later date? will distract on for years? we just don't know at this point. i think as i said a lot of things will become more clear on april 25. >> and we look for to talking to you to that status meeting. finally, sarah weinman, do you see congress playing a role? >> that's a very, very good question, peter.

certainly judge chin hopes that congress will play a role. i'm not entirely certain that they will play a role sense -- from a priority standpoint looking at the greater context of budget cuts and health care and various military activities going on, whether the issue of having a digital library is going to even register on the current congress. they also think traditionally haven't necessary been the most willing listeners in terms of trying to change current copyright law to make it more accessible to everybody. so i think it remains to be seen what congress in fact will to. >> sarah weinman is the news editor for publishers marketplace. we will talk with her again after the april 25 evening. thank you. >> thank you so much for having me. >> you been watching