Microsoft bemoans Google book deal

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 9 Sep 2009 at 15:52

Microsoft has blasted Google's book digitisation deal with US publishers as "an unprecedented misuse of the judicial system".

The deal will see Google pay $125 million to the Authors Guild and the Association of American publishers to create a massive repository of digitised books, where authors and publishers can register works and receive a portion of the revenues earned from ads, subscriptions and sales.

In its filing to the US District Court of New York, Microsoft claimed the deal would give Google a stranglehold on the nascent digital book market: "The proposed settlement confers on Google a new monopoly by authorising Google (and Google alone) to engage in the wholesale commercial exploitation of entire copyrighted books."

These closed-door negotiations excluded millions of copyright owners and the very public that copyright law serves

The software giant went on to bemoan the nature of negotiations, claiming they rode roughshod over the rights of authors: "These closed-door negotiations excluded millions of copyright owners and the very public that copyright law serves.

"Google and the plaintiffs seek to arrogate public policymaking to themselves, bypass Congress and the free market, and force a sweeping 'joint venture' – built on copyrights owned by a largely absent class – via this Court's order," it claims.

The filing follows a similar one by Amazon last week, which described the book deal as "an antitrust nightmare". The retail giant was subsequently blasted by the Author's Guild, which claimed "Amazon's hypocrisy is breathtaking".

Google has shrugged off objections to the deal, claiming "the books settlement is injecting more competition into the digital books space, so it's understandable why our competitors might fight hard to prevent more competition."