Google Brought To Book On Mega Digital Library Plans

Google’s race to become the world largest library has been brought to a halt in a New York court. District Court Judge Denny Chin ruled against Google and its settlement proposal to pay $125 million for the rights to scan millions of books.

Chin said that Google would have a “de facto monopoly” on digitised content if the deal went through and would “arguably give Google control over the [books] search market”.

End Of A Chapter But Not A Closed Book

Google initially made the offer to the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers in 2008 but Amazon, Microsoft, numerous authors and publishers expressed concerns and objections. For the past two and a half years, Google has been trying to find a way to make the deal palatable after the US Justice Department weighed in saying that the deal might violate copyright and anti-trust laws.

After the pronouncement, Google said it was “disappointed” but an amended settlement could be possible. If the company switches the system from being implemented on an opt-out basis – which authors particularly objected to – and instead became an opt-in process a settlement could be considered, Chin sad.

Google’s ultimate aim is to make every book in the world searchable by digitising the content. It would not become a bookseller like Amazon, it claimed, because not all books would be completely downloadable. However, the publishers argue, it would mean that book sales could be impacted.

The Google concept is, in essence, similar to the situation with recorded works. Like online music vendors, Google would pay publishers and authors when content is downloaded but it is the scale of the company’s plans in a nascent ebook market that has started alarm bells ringing.

Google cannot appeal the ruling but it has already scanned around 12 million books so it will not let the project go easily. Assuming a settlement can be found, the plan is to roll out the service in the US and then to tackle worldwide rights.

Managing counsel for the company, Hilary Ware said, “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 US today. 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.”