Slashdot Mirror
Justice Dept. Opens Antitrust Inquiry Into Google Books Deal
Mad Hamster points out a NY Times report that the US Department of Justice has launched an antitrust inquiry (may require free registration) to take a look at the deal Google has made with book publishers and authors for its Book Search service. Quoting:
"Lawyers for the Justice Department have been in conversations in recent weeks with various groups opposed to the settlement, including the Internet Archive and Consumer Watchdog. More recently, Justice Department lawyers notified the parties to the settlement, including Google, and representatives for the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild, that they were looking into various antitrust issues related to the far-reaching agreement. The inquiry does not necessarily mean that the department will oppose the settlement, which is subject to a court review. But it suggests that some of the concerns raised by critics, who say the settlement would unfairly give Google an exclusive license to profit from millions of books, have resonated with the Justice Department."
Update — 4/29 at 14:25 by SS: CNet has new information on the extension Google was seeking in order to contact rightsholders for a decision on whether to join the settlement or opt out. Google had originally asked for 60 days, but a judge has now granted them four more months.
Google licenses these works for a fee, and gains the right to redistribute.
Other parties don't license the works, and they complain they are shut out of the market.
Didn't Netscape cry foul in the same way? I'd hate for the Internet Archive to suffer the same fate as Netscape.
Can anyone actually correctly summarize what is going on with this Google book deal, I find it hard to believe that Google is trying to gain exclusive rights over all these unclaimed (copyright wise) books completely and forever for all copies of this book everywhere.
Isn't it really that they just want rights to put up the books that they scanned (and some people that had agreements with them to help scan)? Is there something that would stop people from rescanning those books and posting them up some place else?
Links to clear sources would be best... Where's my Google Security Blanket(TM)!
Pete/Petri "damn, my chainsaw is clogged with 1's and 0's again." --clyde
... which have, until now, been almost completely unavailable to the public. You know, out of print.
Inter-library loans are great and all, but what about when no library anywhere has a copy remaining on hand? Or, more practically, when no library in your particular state/country/jurisdiction has a copy which you are allowed to check out? Very dog-in-a-manger, yeesh.
How the heck do you change a case against you into an exclusive agreement in your favor?
When you've committed a tort, it's generally you the defendant that has to be making concessions..
It seems like the exclusivity provisions should be stricken from the settlement, and it should just be a matter of authors offering google the privileges and duties they want in exchange for fair compensation.
The option should be left open for the publishers to negotiate similar deals with other services in the future.
The sooner I can download what ever text I want, the better. I hope the governement doesnt stand in the way.
If you guys really want to understand all of this stuff, as I did, I suggest you listen to my interview with Professor James Grimmelmann, who is writing a long, long, long brief examining all the issues for the court about this settlement in an amicus brief from the New York Law School.
He went to Harvard and Yale, interned for the Creative Commons, and used to be a programmer at Microsoft.
It's a lengthy interview, but we cover all the important stuff.
http://www.fictioncircus.com/news.php?id=356&mode=one
No doubt we will hear about the Microsoft connection in a couple of days. Just as with the Yahoo deal this complaint is most probably a lobby initiated by Microsoft.
Its very clear Ballmer is out to crush Google with every possible means. Not for the sake of the Microsoft stockholders but as a personal vendetta.
HTTP/1.1 400
A trust is not inherently bad. So long as no individual rights are violated, there is no cause for concern, and certainly no reason for the government to get involved. Of course, service may degrade, but as it does, customers should be free to switch to alternatives, and other individuals/companies should be free to create and offer those alternatives.
I mean, otherwise how do we explain how some things are "Too big to fail," and others get anti-trust actions taken against them.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Is just come up with a standard license agreement that can apply to anyone, with a per-page fee, for all orphaned or out-of-print works still in copyright. Something along the lines of "Yes, we don't sell that work anymore (it's out of print), but if you want to obtain it for a minimum of $0.0X per page, you can obtain it from vendor A, vendor B, or vendor C, etc., as long as we get our pre-arranged cut of the deal." It might cut into publisher's ability to do reprintings at the original price if the cost per page is set too low, but they could mitigate that by saying it only applies to works that have been officially (i.e. according to the publisher) out-of-print for 10 or 20 years or more, which aren't too likely to ever get another print run anyway.
If they did this, then publishers would get some money for works they can't be bothered to reprint themselves, and companies providing the service can compete on cost (over what they have to return to the original publishers). For works where you can't find the publisher, toss the money into some publisher-organized fund from which a company can claim their portion if they can properly show they are the copyright holder, or, alternatively, have a time limit for making such claims (10 years?) and then dole out a fraction of the money to all publishers that signed on to the original deal.
The basic problem is getting access to old and out-of-print works for which copyright has not yet expired, but where the publisher has no intention to ever print again. Used books helps enormously, but there are new options now that technology for duplicating works has advanced so much. There must be some way to come to a bargain that makes both copyright holders and users happy, but I agree with the premise that the solution shouldn't involve Google alone.
and what percentage of authors prefers not being read, exactly? Your argument that "there are people that might want their works to go OOP" seems fairly misleading, as the usual case (and the problem is far more often that a publisher will refuse to reprint it, for cost concerns or otherwise.
And it's hardly as though those authors have much choice in the matter.
So no, this is *not* the issue. Yours is just a fringe case.
so he went to the same schools as john yoo, george bush, and bill gates. not to mention dozens of those wall street executives at great companies like lehman, bear sterns, merril lynch, etc.
must be a brilliant scholar then.
In this case though, the government (through the courts) have singled out an individual corporation and granted them the right to do things that are illegal for every other individual or corporation the the country.
There are serious antimarket aspects to this settlement but the isn't the company, the problem is the government.
"it suggests that some of the concerns raised by critics, who say the settlement would unfairly give Google an exclusive license to profit from millions of books"
.. maintain an electronic database of Books .. At any time, Rightsholders can change instructions to Google regarding any of those uses'
Google Book Settlement
M. Settlement Agreement Between Publishers and Google
'4. Notwithstanding anything in this Agreement, the Publishers have and retain all rights that they have under the Class Action Settlement'
J. Summary Notice of Class Action Settlement
'The settlement, if Court-approved, will authorize Google to