Orphans and Foundlings

News from Washington, D.C. that the U.S. Justice Department is looking into the Google books settlement with a view to determining details of Google's newly acquired right to digitize entire libraries. One important emerging problem is the potential antitrust issues that may arise from the company's ability to commercialize content on an exclusive basis. Peter Brantley, director of the Internet Archive -- another organization that is building a large online digital book collection -- has expressed the hope that U.S. District Judge Denny Chin will reject the settlement as it presently stands on the grounds that Google's ability to digitize the so-called "orphan books" (books or materials for which the copyright owner can't be found, but which are none the less covered by U.S. copyright law) gives it a free pass for infringement.

See also in this blog: Going Google
The Digibooks Row

The Digibooks Row

In a new move on a topic that may be of direct interest to readers of this blog, especially translators whose titles frequently go out of print, Google is currently preparing to finalize and fully implement its book digitization program. Having reached a $125m agreement with the US Authors' Guild and the Association of American Publishers aimed at finally settling the class action suit that raised serious charges of copyright infringement in relation to Google's Book Search, the company is now waiting for the court decision which will allow it to go ahead. As The Register notes, not everyone in the world of Web 3.0 (aka the "Data Web") is happy with the likelihood of Google acquiring what they see as a virtual monopoly on international library digitizing:

Having settled with the authors and publishers, it can exploit its financial power from within a protective legal barrier, for the class action suit covers the entire class of authors and publishers," [Harvard University libraries head Robert] Darnton wrote. "No new entrepreneurs will be able to digitize books within that fenced-off territory, even if they could afford it, because they would have to fight the copyright battles all over again. If the settlement is upheld by the court, only Google will be protected from copyright liability."

Since trumpeting Darnton's words hither and yon, the press had been all but quiet on the matter. But then, early last week, Wired tossed up a blog post entitled "Who's Messing With the Google Book Settlement? Hint: They're in Redmond, Washington." The New York Law School recently asked the court for permission to voice its concerns on the matter, and Wired took enormous pleasure in pointing out that the law school's Google Book Settlement project is funded solely by Microsoft.