Book bullying
A heavyweight coalition comprised of Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo! is joining an alliance - provisionally dubbed the Open Book Alliance - created to oppose Google's settlement with US authors and publishers, according to widespread reports.
For the past few years Google has been busy scanning million of out-of-print books in order to make them available digitally through Google Books. But, understandably, the copyright holders of these books thought Google shouldn't be allowed to profit from this without them getting a piece of the action.
Google addressed their concerns in a settlement, announced last October. This placated the Author's Guild, the association of American Publishers and some individual authors that had undertaken the class action suit against Google, but initiated broader concern about Google monopolising the electronic publication of out-of-print books.
Amazon, the world's biggest book-seller, as well as an e-book pioneer with Kindle, has a clear vested interest in joining this alliance, while Microsoft and Yahoo! recently teamed-up to fight Google in the online search market.
The Open Book Alliance is headed up by non-profit outfit Internet Archive, which was founded in order to build an Internet library. Founder Brewster Kahle to the BBC news: "Google is trying to monopolise the library system. If this deal goes ahead, they're making a real shot at being 'the' library and the only library."
Both the US and European regulatory authorities are looking into the legality of the settlement, which also grants Google the right to publish out-of-copyright material. Google has always insisted this deal is not monopolistic as there's nothing stopping another company from duplicating its efforts.
