Google and the DOJ

The U.S. Justice Department has criticized the Google Book Settlement, saying that the proposals still present copyright and antitrust issues. In particular, it is concerned that the settlement in its current form forces authors

to "opt out" of having their books scanned and digitised, rather than opting in, which is the usual assumption for copyright law.  (Telegraph)

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."

Google Books antitrust probe to go ahead

Google's $125,000,000 book-scanning settlement is to be investigated by U.S. antitrust legislators, according to Bloomberg. The Register reports that

deputy attorney general William F. Cavanaugh sent a letter to the federal judge overseeing the proposed settlement, saying that the deal may run afoul of US antitrust laws. "The United States has reviewed public comments expressing concern that aspects of the settlement agreement may violate the Sherman Act," Cavanaugh wrote.

At the centre of the probe will be the issue of the so-called "orphan works" - books whose rights are controlled by authors and publishers who have ceased to exist or cannot otherwise be located.

Finnish publishing news

Parnasso's Jarmo Papinniemi writes that Finland's third largest publisher, Tammi, has announced plans for drastic cutbacks in staff, while there is also speculation that another publisher, Gummerus, may be taken over by Tammi (=Bonnier) or WSOY (= Sanoma). One major reason for the changes appears to be the drop in sales of non-fiction: younger Finns especially find that they can locate most of the reference material they need online, through sources such as Google.

A note for the curious: Parnasso's post is headed with the (relatively new) Finnish online chat acronym KVG (Kato ,Vittu, Googlella).

See also in this blog: Changes at Teos.

Google to sell ebooks

The New York Times reports that Google is to introduce new technology that will make it possible for publishers to sell digital versions of their newest books direct to consumers, thus effectively bypassing Amazon. According to the report, the ebooks will be available in several formats, and will not be targeted specifically at the Kindle device. One major factor in the move is pricing - under the Google scheme, publishers will be allowed to set their own prices, something that does not happen presently with Amazon's Kindle-based ebook marketing.