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Once Again, US DoJ Opposes Google Book Search

Posted by kdawson on from the no-so-fast-there-cappy dept.

angry tapir and several other readers passed along the news that the US Department of Justice has come out against the revised agreement to settle copyright lawsuits brought against Google by authors and publishers. This is a major blow to Google's efforts to build a massive digital-books marketplace and library. From the DoJ filing (PDF): "...the [Amended Settlement Agreement] suffers from the same core problem as the original agreement: it is an attempt to use the class action mechanism to implement forward-looking business arrangements that go far beyond the dispute before the Court in this litigation. As a consequence, the ASA purports to grant legal rights that are difficult to square with the core principle of the Copyright Act that copyright owners generally control whether and how to exploit their works during the term of copyright. Those rights, in turn, confer significant and possibly anticompetitive advantages on a single entity — Google."

5 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Yay! by Richard_at_work · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The inevitable future being what? That of one where anyone can circumvent copyright (or indeed any other property law by extension) by making an agreement with a body that purports to represent an entire industry, but has no agreement with most of those supposedly represented?

  2. Good by metamatic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The right solution is to fix the brokenness of copyright law, not to write in a special exemption for a particular company.

    For starters, we should have an orphan works provision, and the duration of copyright should be cut back down to reasonable levels.

    --
    GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
    1. Re:Good by N0Man74 · · Score: 5, Informative

      You know, an 'Orphaned Work' isn't just works where the copyright holder doesn't make themselves known. There are examples of where an organization has spent a great deal of time and effort to just follow the trail of ownership of copyright where the ownership has changed hands several times, and apparently has been forgotten even by the other owner. Many times even with great effort to establish the owner, it simply can't be found.

  3. You must change both sides of the equation by RandomFactor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    > copyright owners generally control whether and how to exploit their works during the term of copyright

    Which would be much more reasonable if copyright wasn't permanent (by any reasonable measure) now.

    Copyright has been changed. As such, the rules governing it need to adjust to maintain the benefit of having it for society.

    --
    --- Mercutio was right.
  4. Re:Opposes? by jecblackpepper · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If your problem is orphaned works then there are two fair solutions I can see to fix the problems:

    • Shorten copyright terms, orphaned works are only a problem when copyright is significantly longer than the time a work a is in print for.
    • Have a public body rule on orphaned works and if found to be be truly orphaned, then put them in the public domain for anyone to use.