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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.
... 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 issue seems to be that Google is getting their blanket 'permission' to do what they want to do from a third party which may or may not have the actual legal right to give Google the blanket permission. From what I have read, it sounds very dodgy.
Check out compulsory licenses, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_license
Congress could easily put the orphaned book deal into law, whereby anyone could declare a book orphaned to a government agency that would look the book up in what's currently being published. If it's not, you would pay a royalty to that agency, who would keep the money in escrow in case the copyright owner comes forward. If and when they do, they could make a deal with you to keep publishing, or politely ask you to stop. Such a law would be a much better deal than a specific settlement between one company and the guilds.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
One is an investigation into a potential monopoly situation where said monopoly may be bending a certain contract to snuff competition. The other is not a monopoly situation at all. It's hardly a oligopoly and no one was others from competing.
I don't care about any individual copyright holder that doesn't know about this deal. I don't really care about Google. What I care about is that no-one else can compete with Google in the same market, because they haven't been sued yet.
Since this license to reprint exists for books that have not yet been written, I would say there is the ability to have future violations. Google will be free to reprint future books long after this case fades from the headlines, and the authors do not realize they need to opt out.