Three of Google's biggest online rivals have joined the fight against a court settlement that would give Google the rights to sell millions of books on the Internet.
Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) confirmed Friday that it has agreed to join a coalition opposing the Google deal. Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500) and Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) have also joined, according to published reports.
The coalition, called the Open Book Alliance, opposes a settlement reached last October between Google, the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild. The settlement would allow Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) to display portions of books online and sell digital copies of them.
Court approval of the agreement is pending.
Google's online book initiative, called Google Books, has cataloged 1 million public domain books with expired copyrights. The tech giant's settlement was reached after the publishers and authors associations sued Google for copyright infringement in late 2005 over the company's plans to scan and copy millions of books from library collections -- many of which are still under copyright.
The settlement would give authors and publishers $45 million whose copyrighted books are scanned without permission.
The Justice Department's antitrust unit announced in April that it is looking into the settlement.
In addition to the three big companies that plan to join the coalition, the opposition group is made up of the nonprofit group Internet Archive and various library associations from across the country.
Requests for comment from Amazon, Yahoo and a coalition representative were not immediately returned. Amazon makes the popular Kindle e-reader, and sells digital books on its online store. source: CNN
Friday, August 21, 2009
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