Google (GOOG) Loses Settlement Proposal with Book Publishers, Authors

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) had another setback in its goal of providing as many digital books online that it can, especially those that are hard to find and have access to.

Federal Judge Denny Chin wrote in an opinion filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that the proposed agreement “would simply go too far” in terms of allowing Google to establish a business arrangement that grants it the right to “exploit entire books, without permission of the copyright owners.”

According to its proposed settlement agreement, Google would gain the right to provide copyrighted works on its books service, apart from those actively withheld by copyright owners.

Plaintiffs including the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers sued Google in 2005, complaining that the company’s digital scanning violated copyright protections.

In his ruling on Tuesday, Judge Chin wrote that his concerns about the agreement could be eased by converting it to an “opt-in” arrangement for copyright owners, rather than “opt-out.” He urged the parties to consider revising the agreement.

“Like many others, we believe this agreement has the potential to open up access to millions of books that are currently hard to find in the U.S. today,” managing counsel Hilary Ware said. “Regardless of the outcome, we’ll continue to work to make more of the world’s books discoverable online through Google Books and Google eBooks.”

Google closed Tuesday at $577.32, up $0.82, or 0.14 percent.




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