Justice Department questions Google if they are violating antitrust in regards of digitalizing world’s books into a database that is online.

This settlement between Google, Association of American Publishers, and the Authors Guild was made back in October. A fund of over one-hundred million would pay out the authors. Back in 2005, publishers and authors sued Google’s book scanning project, which had dealt with copyrighted books, and public domain.

Some say that Google has the right to monopoly the books for online access since the deal was done.

Earlier this month, the Department of Justice was called by a nonprofit group, to investigate Google and their plans to scan these books to the online database. Google was planning on scanning books that are copyrighted, but the person that holds the rights, can’t be found. They are known as “Orphan” books.

John Simpson, an advocate for the nonprofit group had sent a letter to the U.S. Attorney General, wanting the government to intervene with this settlement between Google and the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers stating that the settlement needed to be relooked at to see if it took the consumers interest or not. Simpson also stated in his letter that this settlement, that was done, protects Google, but there is no protection for others. Simpson describes it as a barrier for other competitors to join in on the digital book process.

The digitized book business has become competitive and on the rise in the market. Back in March Sony had announced it eBook domain free for readers.

With the legal people chatting with Google and the other businesses involved, we shall see soon what the investigation will bring forth.

Popularity: 2% [?]