Heavyweights join opposition to Google Book Settlement

The Google Book Settlement will go before a U.S. district court on October 7 this year, and Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo! have all announced that they will join efforts to block the Book Rights Registry. The Register reports that

Amazon's Jeff Bezos is on record as saying about the proposed deal: "Clearly, that settlement in our opinion needs to be revisited and it is being revisited... it doesn't seem right that you should do something, kind of get a prize for violating a large series of copyrights."

The battle lines are clear. Authors see the Registry as a way to gain even a meager amount of cash from their work, and Google's competitors see the settlement as cementing an intellectual Googleopoly.

The European Union is also to hold a hearing September 7, "to gather input on how the deal might affect European authors."

Iceland to apply for EU membership

Carl Bildt responds positively to the news that Iceland is to start negotiations for entry to the European Union.

Pirates of the new EU

One of the large number of "fringe" political groupings that scored a success in Sunday's Euro-elections was Sweden's Pirate Party, which secured 7.1% of the Swedish vote.

In the Aftonbladet newspaper, author Jan Guillou attacked his colleague Lars Gustafsson, saying that "the author, or indeed anyone who is active in cultural life, who votes for the Pirate Party is the sheep who votes for the wolf."

There are more reflections on the topic here.