NYT: Justice Dept. Steps Up Probe Into Google Book Settlement

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 10, 2009 - 8:42am.

San Francisco - The U.S. Justice Department has intensified its antitrust investigation into Google's proposed settlement with authors and publishers over its digital book-scanning project, sending formal requests for information to Google (NASD: GOOG) and others involved in the dispute, The New York Times reported.

The Association of American Publishers, Authors Guild and individual publishers also received requests from the Justice Dept.

"They are asking for a lot of information," Michael J. Boni, an attorney for the Authors Guild, told The Times.

"It signals that they are serious about the antitrust implications of the settlement."

Google agreed to pay $125 million to authors and publishers to settle a lawsuit they brought, which alleged Google's book-scanning project violated their copyrights.

The settlement grants Google broad rights to scan millions of books and share in profits from their distribution online -- which critics argue amounts to a monopoly on the nascent market.

http://snipurl.com/jur3m (DMW previous coverage)