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Archive for the 'Competition and IP' Category
The United States Justice Department confirmed earlier this week that it was commencing an investigation into the settlement of a lawsuit with Google that had been filed by groups representing publishers and authors.
According to the Justice Department, in a letter to the federal judge who is reviewing the settlement in this case, it was looking at concerns that the settlement agreement could potentially violate American antitrust legislation (the Sherman Act).
The USD $125 million settlement agreement, which is subject to review by a federal court, was meant to settle a class action lawsuit that the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild filed against Google (alleging that a plan by Google to convert millions of books from libraries into digital form would infringe their copyright). The settlement is meant to allow Google to display the books on the Internet and generate revenues by selling access to the titles as well as through sales of subscriptions to institutions.
Antitrust commentators in the United States have said that the Justice Department letter suggests that it is reviewing complaints that the agreement would give Google an exclusive right to profit from so-called “orphan works” (out of print works whose authors or rights holders cannot be found or are unknown).
In his response, U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan Denny Chin, who recently became well known for sentencing Bernard Madoff to 150 years, set a September 18th deadline for the Government to present its views.
Opponents to the Google plan to digitize books include an organization called the Internet Archive, which wants to digitize books from libraries to make them broadly available. A Google representative said:
“It’s important to note that this agreement is non-exclusive and, if approved by the court, stands to expand access to millions of books in the U.S.”
While Google, which was founded in 1998, operates the world’s most well known Internet search engine, Google’s wider goals include organizing the world’s information making it universally accessible and useful. In this regard, according to the New York Times:
“Google has built a powerful network of data centers around the globe in hopes of, among other things, connecting users instantly with high-resolution satellite pictures of every corner of the earth and sky; making the entire text of books, in and out of print, available online; and becoming the leading distributor of online video through YouTube, which it acquired in 2006.”
For more see: Google Antitrust Case, Google Inc. and Justice Department’s Letter to the Court.
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