One To Watch: Google Antitrust Case

Keep your eyes on this one:

Justice Dept. Opens Antitrust Inquiry Into Google Books Deal (By Miguel Helft, NYTimes)

The skinny:

The settlement agreement stems from a class action filed in 2005 by the Author’s Guild and the Association of American Publishers against Google. The suit claimed that Google’s practice of scanning copyrighted books from libraries for use in its Book Search service was a violation of copyrights.

The settlement, which was announced in October, gives Google the rights to display the books online and to profit from them by selling access to individual text and selling subscriptions to its entire digital collections to libraries and other institutions. Revenues would be shared between Google, authors and publishers.

But critics say that Google alone will have a license over millions of so-called “orphan books,” whose authors and right holders are unknown or cannot be found. Some experts believe the orphan works account for the bulk of the collections of some of the major university libraries, that have allowed Google to scan books.

Some librarians fear that with no competition, Google will be free to raise prices. Some scholars have also said that the system for pricing books could raise antitrust concerns.