Google Book Search: Antitrust Inquiry
The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an antitrust inquiry into Google Book Search settlements; http://tr.im/jZp2
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Gerrit Eicker
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eicker. Wir sprechen Online. Folgen Sie uns zu relevanten Nachrichten rund ums Web. [RSS, Kontakt]
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Gerrit Eicker 07:43 on 29. April 2009 Permalink |
NYT: “The inquiry does not necessarily mean that the department will oppose the settlement, which is subject to a court review. But it suggests that some of the concerns raised by critics, who say the settlement would unfairly give Google an exclusive license to profit from millions of books, have resonated with the Justice Department. … If the Justice Department decides to take action against the settlement, it will not be the first time that Google has found itself in the sights of federal regulators. Last year, Google abandoned a prominent advertising partnership with Yahoo after the department threatened to go to court to block the deal.”
SEL: “In contrast with the Yahoo action, which Google overtly went after, it’s hard to argue that Google somehow set itself up for a potential antitrust action in this case. The settlement terms came about as a result of a lawsuit, and through negotiations with those who supposedly were working in the interest of authors and publishers. Now, more and more are speaking out that those interests are not properly being looked after and question the larger implications of a deal in general.”
pC: “While Google agreed to share the revenues with the publishers and authors, libraries are worried that Google would have solitary and overwhelming control over access to ‘orphan books’ – titles whose authors and rights-holders have essentially abandoned. Since there’s no other online entity with access to these abandoned books, Google could effectively raise prices for access to the collection and libraries would have nowhere else to go for them.”
Google Orphans « Wir sprechen Online. 11:07 on 30. April 2009 Permalink |
[...] Book Search (5), Net (676), Orphans, Quotes (249), Web (982) Schonfeld: “Google needs to free the orphans … a deal between authors and any book digitizer”; http://tr.im/k57n [...]