Justice Dept. Opposes Google Book Settlement in Current Form

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 21, 2009 - 7:22am.

Washington - The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday urged the court overseeing Google's (NASD: GOOG) settlement with authors to reject the deal in its current form, "due to concerns of the United States regarding class action, copyright and antitrust law." The Justice Dept. said that "the partied should be encouraged to continue their productive discussions to address those concerns."

The Justice Dept. also provided a list of proposals on how the deal could be altered to gain its approval, including "imposing limitations on the most open-ended provisions for future licensing, eliminating potential conflicts among class members, providing additional protections for unknown rights holders, addressing the concerns of foreign authors and publishers, eliminating the joint-pricing mechanisms among publishers and authors, and, whatever the settlement's ultimate scope, providing some mechanism by which Google's competitors can gain comparable access."

Also opposed to Google's proposed settlement are an array of privacy advocates, and big-name rivals such as Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo.

A court hearing is currently scheduled for Oct. 7 to examine to proposed settlement between Google and the Authors Guild.

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/09/doj-google-reject/