With less than two weeks remaining until a key deadline in the Google Books settlement, Google's opposition is circling the wagons.
The Open Book Alliance, a consortium that includes not-for-profit author groups, library institutions, and Google rivals Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo, launched on Wednesday to "insist that any mass book digitisation and distribution effort be open and competitive".
As reported last week by The Wall Street Journal, the group will be led by Peter Brantley of Internet Archive and veteran antitrust lawyer Gary Reback of Carr & Ferrell.
Google's proposed settlement with book rights holders last October gave it the sole legal authority to scan and distribute digital books that are still in copyright but out of print, and library groups and privacy activists have been protesting ever since.
Some object to the unchecked publishing power granted to a single corporation, some are concerned that rights holders are not getting a fair shake under the deal, and some just dislike Google. On the other hand, there are some rights holders who are excited by the idea of gaining recognition and perhaps revenue for books long out of print.
Book rights holders have until Friday 4 September to decide if they want to opt out of the proposed settlement and prevent their books from being displayed in Google Book Search. The US Department of Justice is also looking into the Google Books settlement to determine if "anticompetitive practices" were used in the formulation of the settlement.
Talkback
To it then why is google not willing to go back to the drawing board with all party's? surely if they are genuine about bringing publications of any sort to the masses via technology fairly then this would be in there best interests, if they are not willing to meet other's half way then that would certainly suggest other motives.