Google Book Settlement: Voices of Concern Growing Louder

This Thursday, September 10, the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on "Competition and Commerce in Digital Books."  As a former House Judiciary counsel, I know that this hearing is an indication of the growing number of voices raising concerns about the Google book search settlement.  As I stated in an earlier blog on this issue, this deal implicates contract rights, copyright, antitrust and constitutional concerns.  

Since the deal was announced, there have been significant red flags raised: ) the Department of Justice opened an antitrust investigation in to the proposed agreement in July;  2) a coalition to challenge the deal has been formed, with Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo, the Internet Archive, and some libraries, and 3) individual authors are concerned about compensation, rights and control.

The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York is set to conduct a hearing on October 7 to review and possibly approve the deal.  But, the legal and competition issues are significant.  I expect the Court will take seriously the concerns raised in the hearing, the DOJ investigation, and the many briefs filed. 

Still,  this is a story of a big market player taking and using the property of others without permission.  Private business negotiations are good and should be encouraged.  But in this case, one has to wonder, does this deal just reward the bully on the block while leaving out those who played by the rules? It just doesn't sit well given the huge stakes for everyone. 

Comments

[Olesya Novik]

The only obstacle remaining for the settlement to take effect is final court approval. Given a case of this scope, it’s not too surprising that a number of interested parties might lodge objections or ask for changes. Nor is it terribly surprising that at least one party nudging its way into the settlement is an internet-issues-oriented group from New York Law School.