Justice Department wary of Google book deal

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 5 Feb 2010 at 08:48

The US Justice Department is continuing to review Google's book deal, claiming that recent changes made the company still fail to address antitrust concerns.

In its court filing, the Justice Department criticised the proposed settlement - which would allow for the digitisation of millions of books - for introducing a class-action mechanism to "implement forward-looking business arrangements" rather than simply resolving an existing dispute.

The department further criticised the agreement for requiring authors to "opt out" of having their books digitised, when copyright law usually requires that authors approve having their works used.

We look forward to Judge Chin's review of the statement of interest from the department and the comments from the many supporters who have filed submissions

It also noted that the deal inappropriately spoke for foreign authors with books published in the US as well as for authors of "orphan works," essentially copyright holders who cannot be identified or located.

Google's exclusive access to these orphan works "remains unaddressed, producing a less than optimal result from a competition standpoint," the department says. The pricing mechanisms also came under criticism from the department on antitrust grounds.

US District Judge Denny Chin has scheduled a hearing on the settlement for 18 February.

Google noted the praise from the department. "We look forward to Judge Chin's review of the statement of interest from the department and the comments from the many supporters who have filed submissions."

The agreement is designed to settle a 2005 class action lawsuit filed against Google by authors and publishers who had accused the search engine giant of copyright infringement for scanning collections of books from four universities and the New York Public Library.