Books from the Michigan State University (MSU) Libraries will soon be digitised by Google to become part of the Google Books website.

Google Books has digitized millions of titles from university libraries and indexed the contents so users can search across the entire set. MSU's participation is part of Google's contract with the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), a consortium of Midwestern universities.

Google will reportedly be digitising about 50,000 titles from the MSU collection. The first batch will be officially handed over to Google on February 12, and digitisation will take about four weeks. MSU shipments will continue until the summer of 2014.

Books that are in the public domain – generally those published before 1923 – are available in full text so the user can read the book online. For titles still protected by copyright, the user is shown a few lines before and after their search term, with links to purchase the book or find it in a library.

The books digitized from CIC libraries are also available through the HathiTrust Digital Library, a partnership among 71 university libraries.

In a final order in the Georgia State E-reserves case, Cambridge University Press vs. Patton, Judge Orinda Evans directed the publisher plaintiffs to pay the defendants nearly $3 million in legal fees and costs, including $2,861,348.71 in attorneys’ fees and $85,746.39 in other court costs, it has been reported. On October 26, records reportedly show that the publishers deposited more than $3.2 million into the Commercial Registry of the Court for the Northern District of Georgia. The money, however, isn't gone yet — publishers have appealed the case, and the money will stay in escrow under a stay order until the appeal is settled.

The payment comes after an August 10 order in the Georgia State University (GSU) e-reserve case, in which Judge Evans flatly rejected the publishers' sweeping proposal for injunctive relief, and ordered the publishers to pay attorneys' costs. The order represented the culmination of a contentious four-year legal battle, in which three academic publishers alleged that GSU administrators systematically encouraged faculty to commit copyright infringement via its e-reserve systems as a no-cost alternative to traditional course packs. Ultimately, in Evans' May 11 verdict, the judge found GSU administrators liable on just five of 99 counts.

The case, however, is not yet settled. On September 10, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) confirmed that the publisher plaintiffs lodged an appeal with the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. In a statement, AAP officials said the District Court's rulings were "inconsistent with prior judicial decisions," and, if left "uncorrected," the courts' decision would "encourage educational institutions across the country to engage in massive infringement of copyright at a great cost to the entire academic community."

The US' Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) has welcomed Judge Harold Baer's decision saying that the HathiTrust Digital Library's (HDL) use of digitised works is a fair use permitted under the Copyright Act. Baer's ruling not only allows HathiTrust to continue serving scholars and the print disabled, it also provides helpful guidance on how future library services can comply with copyright law, according to LCA.

HDL is operated by a consortium of universities, including the University of Michigan, the University of California, the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University and Cornell University. Many of the 10 million digital volumes in HDL were provided by Google in exchange for the universities' allowing the company to scan books in their collections for the Google Library Project.

The Library Project is the subject of two separate cases, one of which was settled earlier this month. In the case which Judge Baer decided, HathiTrust was sued by the Authors Guild (AG) and several other authors' associations in 2011. HDL is used in three ways: full-text searches, preservation, and access for people with print disabilities.

In his decision, Baer cited the two amicus briefs that LCA filed in Authors Guild v. HathiTrust. First, when rejecting the AG's contention that the library exceptions in section 108 somehow limit the fair use privilege in section 107, Baer stated that the LCA brief "further convince[s] me that fair use is available as a defense for the Defendants." Then, when balancing the fair use factors, he observed that the LCA brief "further confirm[s] that the underlying rationale of copyright law is enhanced by the HDL."

Judge Baer also made various holdings, including that an association does not have standing under the Copyright Act to bring infringement suits on behalf of its members. Another holding states that the creation of a search index is a transformative use under the first fair use factor, and that the use of digital copies to facilitate access for the print disabled is also transformative.

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) and Internet search services provider Google have announced a settlement agreement that will provide access to publishers' in-copyright books and journals digitised by Google for its Google Library Project. The dismissal of the lawsuit will end seven years of litigation.

The agreement settles a copyright infringement lawsuit filed against Google on October 19, 2005 by five AAP member publishers. As the settlement is between the parties to the litigation, the court is not required to approve its terms.

The settlement acknowledges the rights and interests of copyright-holders. US publishers can choose to make available or choose to remove their books and journals digitised by Google for its Library Project. Those deciding not to remove their works will have the option to receive a digital copy for their use.

Apart from the settlement, US publishers can continue to make individual agreements with Google for use of their other digitally-scanned works.

Google Books allows users to browse up to 20 percent of books and then purchase digital versions through Google Play. Under the agreement, books scanned by Google in the Library Project can now be included by publishers.

Further terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

This settlement does not affect Google's current litigation with the Authors Guild or otherwise address the underlying questions in that suit.

The publisher plaintiffs are The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.; Pearson Education, Inc. and Penguin Group (USA) Inc., both part of Pearson; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; and Simon & Schuster, Inc. part of CBS Corporation.

Publishers Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press USA and SAGE have announced their intention to appeal the May 11, 2012 decision in the copyright case with Georgia State University (GSU). The three, who are members of the Association of American Publishers (AAP), have stated that as publishers who are of the academy themselves, they have taken the decision only after considerable discussion within their organisations and consultation with authors whose work they publish. They can scarcely overstate the commitment to the core mission of the library as a cultural institution, the publishers have noted.

The statement further says that from the earliest days of this litigation, the publishers have been solely focused on the need for a solution that is genuinely workable for all participants in the academic community, one that respects established fair use principles and basic copyright protection for their authors’ work without unduly encumbering teachers and librarians.

This case had the potential to mark a significant first step toward addressing the need for clarity around issues of copyright in the context of higher education, where current practices around fair use in a digital environment vary widely and could benefit from sound judicial guidance, according to the publishers. Their hope was that the District Court would provide that guidance.

Instead, it has been pointed out, the Court's rulings, culminating in the August injunction decision, shift radically from long-accepted fair use principles and introduce, among other errors, unsustainable policies regarding the proportion of a work not readily available for digital licensing that can be digitally copied without restriction. The publishers state that they have no alternative but to appeal, to protect its authors’ copyrights and advocate for a balanced and workable solution.

Four leading education companies - Cengage Learning, Inc., John Wiley and Sons, Inc., Pearson Education, Inc. and McGraw-Hill Education – have announced that they have settled five unconnected matters involving copyright and trademark infringement claims against companies relating to the sale of counterfeit textbooks. The five separate settlements call for the combined payment of more than $2.6 million dollars and agreements not to engage in any infringement going forward.

The five distributors agreeing to settle the publishers’ claims are: Kentwood Industries in California, Texas Book Company in Texas, Sterling Educational Media in Florida, Davis Textbook in California and ABSnext Corporation (formerly known as Budgetext Corporation) in Arkansas.

The settlements came about after an intensive investigation by the education companies revealed a large wave of counterfeit textbooks being distributed in the US. The investigation further revealed that among the sources used by the textbook distributors to acquire their books were overseas suppliers identified as being a source of counterfeit textbooks.

While the education companies have settled claims against these five distributors, they are currently pursuing action against other groups of individuals and companies that engaged in similar conduct.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has said that arguments made by various organisations objecting to the final judgment reached between the government and Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster over e-book price fixing charges raise no real new issues. The DoJ has therefore asked that the court approve the agreement without further hearings. The organisations objecting to the judgment include Apple, Macmillan and Penguin. Additionally a friend of the court brief had been filed by the ABA and Barnes & Noble.

According to a Publishers Weekly report, the DoJ maintains that arguments made by the parties that the government doesn't understand the e-book business is just a variation made by other industries at other times. DoJ wrote that while e-books are a relatively new arrival on the publishing scene, a plea for special treatment under the antitrust laws is an old standby. Railroads, publishers, lawyers, construction engineers, healthcare providers and oil companies are just some of the voices that have raised cries against 'ruinous competition' over the decades. Time and time again the courts have rejected the invitation to exempt particular businesses from the reach of the Sherman Act.

The new brief rebuts the separate filings made by Apple, Macmillan, Penguin and the ABA/Barnes & Noble. In dismissing the Penguin brief that argues that, overall, e-book prices have come down since the implementation of the agency model, the DoJ points to its own study that shows that the average price of a Penguin title sold through Amazon rose 17 percent after the implementation of the agency model and that the average price of new releases rose 21 percent. The DoJ provided two exhibits to support its claim of price increases, but continued to assert that it did not need to produce its internal economic analyses.

The DoJ counters Apple's objections by claiming that what troubles Apple the most was that the decree returned e-book pricing not only to Apple but to its competitors as well. It also wrote that Apple's desire to avoid price competition for as long as possible was the unstated reason why it sought to undo or forestall the settlements.

The DoJ also said there was little evidence to suggest that if the settlements were approved Amazon would return to a more dominant position in the e-book market, given the increased competition from a number of players including Microsoft's pending partnership with Barnes & Noble.

Apple recently filed an opposition to the Department of Justice's proposed settlement with three publishers in its e-book price-fixing case, arguing that the company stands to be punished by the deal though it never 'participated in, encouraged, or sought to benefit from collusion,' and assailing a deal that would harm the company by nullifying contracts 'before a single document has been introduced into evidence.' The three publishers are: Hachette, Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins.

Apple reportedly urged the court to do one of two things: approve a more narrowly focused settlement that bars collusion; or reserve final judgment on the settlement until the company has had their day in court. In addition to Apple, the two non-settling publishers - Penguin and Macmillan - also filed opposition briefs.

The brief also prominently raises the outpouring of public comments against the settlement, noting that 92 percent (800 of 868) submissions came from 'actual market participants' who opposed the settlement, raising questions as to whether the deal is in the public interest.

Publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc., US, has announced revised licensing arrangements for proprietary journals published under the Wiley Open Access programme. The journals will adopt the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence which allows commercial use of published articles.

The Wiley Open Access portfolio also includes journals published with society partners, many of which will similarly transfer to the Creative Commons Attribution licence.

Wiley is responding to recent developments in funder and government policies and supports the sustainable evolution of scientific publishing. The change will be implemented immediately. According to Rachel Burley, Vice President and Director, Open Access, while this announcement concerns Wiley’s fully open access journals, the company is also reviewing the licensing arrangements for its hybrid programme OnlineOpen.

In the first instance, the journals moving to the CC-BY licence are: Brain and Behavior, Ecology and Evolution, MicrobiologyOpen, Cancer Medicine, Food Science & Nutrition, Evolutionary Applications, Geoscience Data Journal and EMBO Molecular Medicine. The CC-BY licence allows (with the correct attribution of the original creator) for the copying, distribution and transmission of the work. Adaption and commercial use is also permitted.

The US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia recently handed down a ruling on injunctive and declaratory relief in the copyright infringement lawsuit brought by academic publishers against Georgia State University. According to a statement from the publisher plaintiffs the District Court’s decision is marred by a number of serious legal errors.

The fair use exception cannot be stretched beyond recognition simply because course materials are delivered in a digital format by an educational institution, the statement noted. Further, it states that the ruling excuses copyright violations by GSU and endorses unauthorised copying and distribution of academic works well beyond what the law allows and what universities across the country consider reasonable. The decision devalues academic scholarship by treating such work as ‘factual’ compilations.

According to the statement, this case was brought reluctantly to curb practices that threaten publishing activities vital to institutions of higher education. Then, as of now, the plaintiff publishers are of the academy — two are themselves departments of universities. As with the initial decision to bring suit, the decision regarding an appeal will be based on a considered assessment that takes into account the extent to which this ruling, which the plaintiff publishers believe to be legally vulnerable on multiple grounds, endangers the creation and dissemination of high-quality academic work.

Internet search services provider Google Inc., US, has agreed to pay a record $22.5 million civil penalty to settle US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges. According to the charges, Google misrepresented to users of Apple Inc.'s Safari Internet browser that it would not place tracking "cookies" or serve targeted ads to those users, violating an earlier privacy settlement between the company and the FTC.

The settlement is part of the FTC's ongoing efforts to make sure companies live up to the privacy promises they make to consumers, and is the largest penalty the agency has ever obtained for a violation of a Commission order. In addition to the civil penalty, the order also requires Google to disable all the tracking cookies it had said it would not place on consumers' computers.

According to the FTC's complaint, Google specifically told Safari users that because the Safari browser was set by default to block third-party cookies, as long as users did not change their browser settings, this setting "effectively accomplishes the same thing as [opting out of this particular Google advertising tracking cookie]." In addition, Google represented that it was a member of an industry group called the Network Advertising Initiative, which required members to adhere to its self-regulatory code of conduct, including disclosure of their data collection and use practices.

The FTC charged that despite these promises, Google placed advertising tracking cookies on consumers’ computers, in many cases by circumventing the Safari browser’s default cookie-blocking setting. Google exploited an exception to the browser’s default setting to place a temporary cookie from the DoubleClick domain. Because of the particular operation of the Safari browser, that initial temporary cookie opened the door to all cookies from the DoubleClick domain, including the Google advertising tracking cookie that Google had represented would be blocked from Safari browsers.

The FTC charged that Google's misrepresentations violated a settlement it reached with the agency in October 2011, which barred Google from – among other things – misrepresenting the extent to which consumers can exercise control over the collection of their information. The earlier settlement resolved FTC charges that Google used deceptive tactics and violated its privacy promises when it launched its social network, Google Buzz.

Authors suing Internet search services provider Google Inc., US, over the digitising of books have reportedly asked the judge to order the company to pay $750 for each book it copied, distributed or displayed. The authors' filing, which had been lodged in federal court in the Southern District of New York in July, was made public last week.

Google is being sued over its project to scan and digitise millions of books from public and university libraries. In May, the judge had rejected the company's argument that lawsuits by the Authors Guild and the American Society of Media Photographers should be dismissed because the groups lacked standing to sue for copyright infringement.

The Authors Guild has now asked the judge for a ruling in its favour on three legal issues, one being the claim for damages of $750 a book. The Guild additionally wants a ruling that copying books isn’t a "fair use" under copyright law, as Google has said it will argue.

Google has been seeking dismissal of the suit on the grounds that authors actually benefit from the project since their books can be more readily found, bought and read, while the public gains "increased knowledge."

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) recently joined other members of the Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) - the American Library Association (ALA) and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) - and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to file a friend of the court brief (PDF) in Authors Guild v. Google, Inc.. In the lawsuit authors allege that Google violated copyright by scanning books to create Google Book Search (GBS), a search tool similar to its Internet search engine.

The LCA/EFF brief defends GBS as permissible under the doctrine of fair use, a flexible right that allows copying without payment or permission where the public benefit strongly outweighs the harm to individual rightsholders. It further argues that Google Book Search is tremendously beneficial to the public, that this public benefit tilts the analysis firmly in favour of fair use, that a legislative 'fix' is both unnecessary and unworkable, and that the Authors Guild should not be permitted to shut down Google Book Search after encouraging public reliance on the tool for years.

The members of LCA have long had a commitment to supporting libraries' interest in the Google Book Search settlement agreement.

Internet search services provider Google Inc., US, has submitted court filings stating that its massive book scanning project is fair use because it has delivered many public benefits without harming authors. The company has been fighting a court battle with the Authors Guild on the project, Google Books. It claims that its creation of full-text book searching is "the most significant advance in library search technology in the last five decades" and that the Authors Guild has shown "no evidence that Google Books has displaced the sale of even a single book."

The new filing is in response to Judge Denny Chin's deadline for Google and the Authors Guild to submit arguments on why the case can be decided without a trial. This is just the latest phase of a legal dispute that began in 2005 after authors and publishers sued Google over its ambitious plan to create a massive digital library.

The lawsuit was on ice for several years as the parties worked out a settlement that would have created an online market for the books. Judge Chin blew up the settlement in March 2011, however, after concluding that it was a "bridge too far."

In its filing, Google cites a number of pop culture examples to argue that a searchable digital library is a benefit to the public. The company also describes how book searches unearthed references to an unheralded baseball player, Steve Hovley, that would otherwise have remained buried. Google also cites the more serious example of Minoru Yasui, a civil rights lawyer who is all but invisible in the Library of Congress catalogue but surfaces repeatedly in Google Books. Additionally, Google cites evidence suggesting that online book discovery helps authors sell more copies.

The Authors Guild, which is expected to submit its own motion for summary judgment later, has repeatedly argued that Google had no right to take copyright law into its own hands and reproduce authors' works without permission. The Guild is also at the center of a related fair-use case with libraries over the "Hathi Trust," a massive digital replication of their paper collections.

Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, will reportedly have to pay $22.5 million to settle charges that it bypassed the privacy settings of consumers using Apple's Safari browser. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the fine would be the largest penalty ever levied on a single company by the US Federal Trade Commission.

Google has been charged for using a special computer code, or ‘cookies,’ to trick Apple's Safari browser. This would enable Google to monitor users that had blocked such tracking, the newspaper reported.

According to Google, tracking of Apple users was inadvertent and did not cause any harm to consumers. Google disabled the code after being contacted by the Journal.

Google also faces potential sanctions from other governments. It is being investigated by the European Union to determine if the company complies with Europe's stricter privacy laws.

Scientific publisher Nature Publishing Group, UK, has announced that it has won a case brought against it by theoretical physicist Mohamed El Naschie. In 2008, Nature published an article by journalist Quirin Schiermeier, questioning the lack of peer review at the journal Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, which at the time was edited by El Naschie and published many of his own papers.

El Naschie sued Schiermeier and Nature Publishing Group for damaging his reputation, representing himself in court. The judgement was handed down at Bristol Crown Court on July 6 by Judge Victoria Sharp. The judge dismissed the claim, calling Schiermeier's article ‘the product of responsible journalism’ and ‘a public interest story’. She agreed that although El Naschie's papers had been informally discussed with his colleagues before their publication, they were not subject to ‘any proper peer review at all’ and would not have been published by any reputable peer reviewed journal.

Judge Sharp also found ‘reasonable and serious grounds’ for suspecting that El Naschie used a range of false names to defend his editorial practice in communications with Nature, calling it the most curious and bizarre aspect of the case.

Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, has confirmed that its attorneys have filed a petition to appeal Judge Denny Chin’s recent order granting the Authors Guild’s motion for class certification in its ongoing litigation. While details of the appeal filing were not immediately available, the appeal process could delay the motions for summary judgment, due for June 26. Ultimately the trial date, set for early September, could also be delayed while the appeal process plays out.

Google had earlier argued that the case should not be certified as a class action mainly because ‘individual issues predominate over common ones as to copyright ownership and fair use.’ However, Judge Chin, in his recent ruling, rejected that argument.

The appeal reportedly sets up yet another interesting twist in the long-running case. Chin’s colleagues on the Second Circuit could potentially strike down his recent decision. Chin was promoted to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in April 2010. He, however, kept the Google case, sitting by designation with the district court.

Internet search services provider Google Inc., US, has reportedly ended legal disputes with a French publishing trade group and a French authors’ association over the company’s scanning of books.

The Syndicat National de l’Edition and the SGDL Society of Authors agreed with Google to end litigation over Google’s scanning of copyright-protected books without permission. The Syndicat National de l’Edition represents more than 600 publishers in France. With this move, Google no longer faces French legal action over book scanning.

Google is working to improve its relationship with French industry groups and regulators after disputes over privacy and access to copyrighted content. It has also settled legal disputes with the Hachette Livre unit of Lagardere SCA (MMB) and La Martiniere Groupe that allowed it scan out-of-print works that are still copyrighted.

According to Philippe Colombet, Google Books’ strategic partner development manager in France, the company plans to sell some of the scanned copyrighted works as electronic books. It will share the proceeds with publishers under individual deals where the ‘majority of the revenue comes to the publisher.’

Google would financially support the SGDL Society of Authors’ development of a database of book authors and right-owners to settle legal proceedings over the scanning of copyright-protected books for its digital library, the company and the SGDL said in a joint statement. Google declined to disclose the financial terms of the support.

The SGDL, which represents 6,000 French and French-speaking authors, said the agreement would reaffirm the position of authors and help them protect their rights online.

A federal judge in Manhattan recently granted class-action status to authors suing Internet search services provider Google, US, over the company’s book-scanning project. The judge, allowing the long-stalled case to move forward, ruled that three individual authors and the Author's Guild could represent the class of all authors whose works had been scanned by Google.

Google had sought the opposite result, arguing that including all authors in a single lawsuit would make the case too complex. According to the company, most authors actually supported the scanning project.

Judge Denny Chin ruled on two distinct legal issues. The first was over whether the Author's Guild was entitled to serve as a representative of its members. Google had argued that only individual authors could be plaintiffs as the case would require the participation of those individual plaintiffs to consider issues such as fair use.

But Judge Chin reportedly rejected Google's argument. The associations' claims of copyright infringement and requests for injunctive relief would not require the participation of each individual association member, he stated.

Chin also gave the go-ahead for three individual plaintiffs - Betty Miles, Joseph Goulden and Jim Bouton - to represent the vastly larger class of persons residing in the US who hold a US copyright interest in one or more books reproduced by Google as part of its Library Project.

The ruling is seen as an important victory for the authors because it would have been financially difficult for the three authors to carry the lawsuit forward on an individual basis. This ruling means that plaintiffs' lawyers will be more interested in taking the case in expectation of hefty damages if the authors win. The plaintiffs will also be able to rely on the resources of the Author's Guild to cover their legal costs.

A group representing authors in a copyright case reportedly slammed Google in court last week, saying the company's book-scanning project had hurt millions of authors whose works had been digitised.

The Authors Guild is seeking class-certification status for its claims case in order to represent all copyright holders in the US whose books have been scanned by Google as part of its Library Project. About 20 million books have already been digitised by Google since the project started in 2004. The guild is seeking minimum statutory damages for the authors it wants to represent.

The case brought by the authors was filed in 2005 and is one of three separate lawsuits tied to Google's book-scanning programme. Groups representing publishers and photographers also claim that Google has infringed copyrights via the Library programme, in which digital copies of scanned public domain and in-copyright books from participating libraries are stored on Google servers and are searchable via its search engine. Google presents only snippets of in-copyright books, while public-domain books are fully accessible.

Google is asking the court to dismiss the authors' case, saying the group does not represent the copyrights owned by individual authors or publishers. The company maintains that it is not violating copyright law, and that its actions are protected by the fair use principle. The fair use principle allows for reproduction of limited copyrighted material without permission.

The authors filed a document requesting class-action certification in December 2011 after a proposed settlement between Google and the authors and publishers was rejected by the judge earlier that year.

The presiding judge, Denny Chin of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, noted that there was an overlap in the class-action and dismissal claims revolving around the ownership of works. He said he would make decisions on the motions at a later date, but gave no timetable.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and 15 other US state attorneys general have charged three of the nation’s largest book publishers and Apple Inc. with conspiring to fix the sales prices of e-books. The states’ antitrust case, which was filed in federal court in Austin, cites the defendants for violating the states’ antitrust laws and the federal Sherman Antitrust Act. Defendants named in the antitrust action are: Penguin Group (USA) Inc., Simon & Schuster Inc., Macmillan Holdings LLC and Apple Inc.

The antitrust action stems from a two-year investigation, led by the Texas Attorney General’s Office and coordinated with the offices of the Connecticut Attorney General and the US Department of Justice, into allegations that the defendants conspired to raise e-book prices. For years, retailers sold e-books through a traditional wholesale distribution model, under which retailers – not publishers – set e-books’ sales prices. However, the investigation revealed that Penguin, Simon & Schuster and Macmillan conspired with other publishers and Apple to artificially raise prices by imposing a distribution model in which the publishers set the prices for bestsellers at $12.99 and $14.99.

When Apple prepared to enter the e-book market, the publishers and Apple agreed to adopt an agency distribution model as a mechanism to allow them to fix prices. To enforce their price-fixing scheme, the publishers and Apple relied on contract terms that forced all e-book outlets to sell their products at the same price. Because the publishers agreed to use the same prices, retail price competition was eliminated. According to the states’ enforcement action, the coordinated agreement to fix prices resulted in e-book customers paying more than $100 million in overcharges.

The antitrust action seeks injunctive relief to reverse the effects of the defendants’ anti-competitive conduct as well as damages for customers who paid artificially inflated prices for e-books.

The states have reached an agreement in principle with Harper Collins and Hachette to provide significant consumer restitution as well as injunctive relief.

Texas was joined in the enforcement action by Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont and West Virginia.

Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, is reportedly slowing down its book-scanning work with partner libraries, as observed by librarians involved with the digitisation project. However, it remains unclear what this would mean for the company's long-term investment in the Google Books project.

Google has digitised more than 20 million books to date and continues to scan books with library partners. Librarians at several of Google's partner institutions, including the University of Wisconsin systems and the University of Michigan, confirmed that the pace has slowed.

Some institutions struck agreements with Google to scan only specific collections. Much of that work has now wrapped up. The University of Texas at Austin, for instance, signed on to have Google digitise its Latin American collection that includes about half a million volumes.

According to a report published in The Chronicle, Google is yet to confirm if it has pulled back from its longstanding goal of collecting all of the world's knowledge. Some of its digitisation efforts have reportedly shifted to Europe. Lately, much of the company's public focus has been on how to use individuals' data to create more focused advertising and online browsing rather than mass digitisation.

In the meantime, a copyright-infringement lawsuit brought against it by authors' and publishers' groups drags on. Hathi­Trust and five universities, including Michigan's and Wisconsin's, face their own challenge from the Authors Guild and other groups over control of the scanned works.

Turnitin, web-based solution for plagiarism prevention, has partnered with information resources and technologies provider ProQuest to include more than 300,000 dissertations and theses from 2008 to the present in the Turnitin comparison database.

With this agreement, Turnitin seeks to enhance its repository of scholarly content while extending its plagiarism-checking database, which now tops 20 billion current and archived web pages, 200 million student papers and more than 110 million articles from scholarly journals.

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Database is the seminal repository of intellectual output and emerging research from the world’s great universities. Chosen by United States Library of Congress as the official archive of American dissertations, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Database encompass more than one quarter of a billion pages, creating a unique, continually growing trove of emerging research and landmark works.

Graduate works from ProQuest will extend the breadth of the Turnitin database, which claims to be the world’s largest comparison database of scholarly content, to provide customers with a single solution for originality checking before publication. Turnitin customers can compare documents against ProQuest’s dissertations content as part of a new premium content offering called ‘Turnitin Research.’

The offering consists of Turnitin bundled with iThenticate, the plagiarism checker for scholarly publishers, as well as the ProQuest content.

An international alliance of publishers and publishers’ associations achieved an important success in the combat against Internet piracy recently. Despite significant technical and legal obstacles, the alliance was able to locate the alleged operators of both the sharehoster service www.ifile.it and the link library www.library.nu, and successfully served judicial cease-and-desist orders on both.

The two entities created and operated an ‘Internet library’ which made available illegally more than 400,000 high quality e-books for immediate, free and anonymous download. The operators generated an estimated turnover of EUR 8 million ($10,602,400) from advertising revenues, donations and sales of premium-level accounts, thereby ranking the sites among the top piracy websites in the world.

The close ties between a sharehoster service and a link library meant that the targeted entities were particularly harmful as all illegally uploaded copyright works were made immediately accessible to all Internet users. The international publishers were able to assert extensive claims against the service providers who had partially concealed their identities.

They were able to obtain a total of 17 interim injunctions from the Landgericht (regional court) of Munich I, and successfully served these in Ireland. In doing this, the participating publishers are seen to demonstrate their continued determination to not simply ignore copyright piracy, but to fight the large illegal platforms with all available legal measures.

The international alliance of publishers is coordinated by the German Publishers and Booksellers Association (Börsenverein), the International Publishers Association and German law firm Lausen. The participating publishing houses are Cambridge University Press, Georg Thieme, Harper Collins, Hogrefe, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., Cengage Learning, Elsevier, John Wiley & Sons, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Pearson Education Ltd., Pearson Education Inc., Oxford University Press, Springer, Taylor & Francis, C.H. Beck as well as Walter De Gruyter. The legal proceedings are also supported by the Association of American Publishers (AAP), the Dutch Publishers Association (NUV), the Italian Publishers Association (AIE) and the International Association of Scientific Technical and Medical Publishers (STM).

To access our daily STM news feed through your iPhone, iPad, or other smartphones, please visit www.myscoope.com for a mobile friendly reading experience.

Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, recently filed a motion to dismiss copyright claims against its Google Books project by groups representing authors and photographers. According to Google, the groups could not sue over copyrights they did not own. If granted, only the individual plaintiffs in the two lawsuits would proceed with litigation against the company.

The motion is reportedly the latest development in a legal battle that has been raging since 2005. The Authors Guild and the American Association of Publishers had then sued to block Google from scanning millions of books in libraries and making digitised content from them available in libraries and online. They charged that scanning the books without always seeking permission would violate copyrights. The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) filed a similar lawsuit last year, which is being considered alongside the authors' case.

Google's motion seeks to remove the Authors Guild and the ASMP from the lawsuits. The two organisations have until January 23, 2012 to file their responses. Google will then have until February 3 to respond to their opposition. Meanwhile, Denny Chin of the US District Court for the Southern District of Manhattan will have overlapping motions, as Google is scheduled to file its response to the Authors Guild recent motion for class certification motion by January 26.

Search for more Google Books related information

To access our daily STM news feed through your iPhone, iPad, or other smartphones, please visit www.myscoope.com for a mobile friendly reading experience.

US Senators Herb Kohl and Mike Lee are reportedly urging the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate whether Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, unfairly favours its own properties in search results.

Kohl and Lee, both members of the Senate’s antitrust subcommittee, have jointly signed a five-page letter to FTC Chairman Jonathan Leibowitz calling for ‘serious scrutiny’ of Google’s business practices. More specifically, both members have called for an investigation to see if Google is acting anti-competitively when its own properties are positioned highly in search results.

In their letter, the Senators say they ‘take no position’ on Google’s practices, but they do cite some of the arguments that were brought up by Google’s critics in the September hearing.

Given Google’s dominant market share in Internet search, any such bias would raise serious questions as to whether the company is seeking to leverage its search dominance into adjacent markets, in a manner potentially contrary to antirust law, it has been noted.

In response to similar charges, Google representatives have earlier argued that the company does not have separate products outside of its search service. However, critics point out that Google actually hosts a page titled ‘Products’, where it lists all of its offerings, including web search.

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Five major higher education publishers have entered into a settlement with the online tutoring site Student of Fortune, Inc. to resolve claims for copyright and trademark infringement.

The publishers include The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Cengage Learning, Inc., Pearson Education, Inc. and Elsevier Inc. Each publisher discovered unauthorised digital copies of its learning materials, including full textbooks and instructor solutions manuals, which had been uploaded by third parties and sold to users on the Student of Fortune site.

Student of Fortune was recently acquired by Chegg, Inc., which cooperated with the five publishers to remove the materials in question from the Student of Fortune Website. The materials had been posted prior to Chegg's acquisition of Student of Fortune. Additionally, Chegg has agreed to implement a programme designed to prevent future infringement and promote academic integrity.

The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

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Non-profit copyright licensing solutions provider Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), US, has welcomed the announcement by the US Register of Copyrights, Maria Pallante, of her priorities for the next two years. Register of Copyrights Maria A. Pallante recently made public her office’s priorities and special projects through October, 2013. The paper articulates 17 priorities in the areas of copyright policy and administrative practice, as well as 10 new projects designed to improve the quality and efficiency of the U.S. Copyright Office’s services in the 21st century.

Copyright industries are seen to be a critical part of the US and global economies. Advances in technology are accelerating options for creating, distributing, consuming, sharing and preserving content while globally, laws have not kept pace with technology advances. For more than 20 years, the important principle of copyright which protects the work of authors and creators has faced increasing turmoil. Technology has driven other developments such as eBooks and the growth of "user-generated" content in the digital environment.

It is felt that there is an urgent need for legislative solutions to address the most challenging copyright issues. These include issues ranging from clarifying the use of Orphan Works to streamlining registration for groups of copyrighted works to addressing mass digitisation of books.

CCC actively engages both the Register and her staff on issues such as orphan works, mass digitisation of content, effects of different copyright rules around the world and the promotion of licensing as a solution for the needs of both copyright users and rightsholders.

The UK Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society, the Norwegian Nonfiction Writers and Translators Association, the Swedish Writers Union, the Writers’ Union of Canada, and four individual authors are among the new plaintiffs in an amended complaint filed recently in the Authors Guild v. HathiTrust case. Individual authors joining the lawsuit include University of Oslo professor Helge Rønning, Swedish novelist Erik Grundström, and American novelist J. R. Salamanca. The Authors League Fund, a 94-year-old organisation supported by Authors Guild members that provides charitable assistance to book authors and dramatists, is also now a plaintiff, as holder of rights to an ‘orphaned’ book by Gladys Malvern.

The defendant universities have pooled the unauthorised scans of an estimated 7 million copyright-protected books, the rights to which are held by authors worldwide, into an online repository called HathiTrust. In June, the University of Michigan, which oversees HathiTrust, announced plans to permit unlimited downloads by its students and faculty members of ‘orphaned’ books. Michigan devised a set of procedures - including a protocol for searching for an author and posting the names of ‘orphan work candidates’ at the HathiTrust website for 90 days – to determine whether it would deem a work an ‘orphan.’ Several other schools joined the project in August.

Within days of the suit’s filing on September 12, the Authors Guild, its members and others commenting on its blog had developed strong leads to dozens of authors and estates holding rights to the first 167 works listed as ‘orphan candidates’ at HathiTrust’s website. Four living authors were on HathiTrust’s list. So were significant literary estates, such as those of Pulitzer Prize winners James Gould Cozzens and Walter Lippmann and the philosopher Sidney Hook. Foreign authors were also on the list, including André Missenard, who died in Paris in August. At least three of the works are still in print.

Michigan announced on September 16 that it was suspending, but not ending, its ‘orphan works’ programme. Its online servers continue to host an estimated 7 million digitised, copyright-protected books. Millions of those books are believed to be in print, with e-book versions available for many of them.

The Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society, based in London, has licensed secondary uses of its member-authors’ works for more than 30 years.

Although many US universities, including Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford, have participated in Google’s library digitisation programme, most allow Google to scan only books that are in the public domain. Only a few, principally defendants Michigan and California, have allowed Google to scan books protected by copyright. As state-run institutions, both schools are shielded by 11th Amendment sovereign immunity protections from paying damages for copyright infringement.

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Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, and one of its resellers have reportedly asked a federal court to dismiss their case against the US Department of the Interior over Microsoft-only bids for cloud-based services.

In October 2010, Google and Ohio-based reseller Onix Networking sued the government agency, which they alleged had stacked the deck against the Google Apps suite of services. According to Google and Onix, the Interior Department had demanded that bidders for a $60 million contract use rival Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite Federal (BPOS) to provide e-mail and messaging services.

Google and Onix have now asked a federal claims court to dismiss the case. Government attorneys representing the Interior Department have said that they would not oppose the motion, but told the court that contrary to Google's claim, no agreement had been struck.

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The University of Michigan has suspended its orphan works digitisation project in response to the copyright infringement lawsuit filed against it and four other universities, including Cornell. According to Paul Courant, Dean of Libraries at the University of Michigan, the system for identifying orphan works is now being rebuilt to ensure that no mistakes are repeated. The re-examination of orphan works has already started, but there is no concrete date for when the university will next put up a set of works for use by its communities.

The lawsuit, filed on September 12, claims that Google and the five universities — Cornell, the University of Michigan, Indiana University, the University of Wisconsin and the University of California — have digitised about 7 million books illegally. The majority of the contested texts are known as ‘orphan works’ — books that are still subject to copyright but whose copyright holders are unknown or cannot be located.

Paul Aiken J.D., Executive Director of the Authors Guild, said the suspension was a start to appeasing the authors’ societies and individual authors that filed the suit. It did not, however, reconcile all of the accusations of the lawsuit, he said.

Ed Van Gemert, Deputy Director of Libraries at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Michigan was the first of the five universities being sued to respond to the lawsuit because it was the leader in the HathiTrust project — a collaborative initiative of universities that aspires to build a digital archive. Michigan developed the process to examine and identify copyright material for possible orphan works, opening up access.

Both parties agreed that the goal is to protect the rights of the authors whose work is being digitised. The Authors Guild presently believes that the only way to do this is through litigation, according to Aiken.

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Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and five publisher plaintiffs have reportedly informed a US judge that they are close to settling a lawsuit over the former’s controversial book-scanning project. Negotiations between Google and the Authors Guild, which filed suit against Google for copyright infringement with the AAP six years ago, do not appear to be making as much headway, however.

At a recently held status conference, Judge Denny Chin adopted a proposed pre-trial schedule that, if followed, would have the case ready for trial by July 2012. AAP attorney Bruce Keller told Chin that the publishers had agreed to the proposed trial schedule, but that substantial progress had been made between publishers and Google, and that he hoped the trial schedule would become ‘moot.’

Google attorney Daralynn Durie confirmed that expectation later in the hearing. Durie told Chin that progress was being made and noted that the business principals, ‘not the lawyers’, were in discussion. Authors Guild attorney Michael Boni also informed the court that talks were ongoing, and that the authors were hopeful of a settlement.

The judge adopted the proposed trial schedule and issued a single order. Under the schedule, the plaintiffs’ first brief, for class certification, would be due on December 12. Google’s rebuttal would follow on January 20. Discovery would aim to be completed by the end of March, 2012, and motions for summary judgment, assuming there would motions from all parties, would be in by mid-July 2012.

The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) has released a statement stating concern over the Authors Guild's decision to file a lawsuit against HathiTrust and its research library partners. According to LCA, the case has no merit, and completely disregards the rights of libraries and their users under the law, especially fair use.

The HathiTrust and its partners have assembled a digital resource that will ensure secure, long-term preservation of nearly 10 million volumes held in member library collections. The majority of these works are not available commercially and will disappear completely if not for library stewardship, it is claimed. LCA applauds the modest steps HathiTrust and its partners have taken to foster those 'orphan' works whose owners have abandoned them to library care. HathiTrust is seen to add significant value to library collections in support of teaching, research and learning, while respecting the law. It is deplorable that eight authors and three special interest groups are trying to dismantle this resource out of a misplaced fear of the digital future, LCA has stated.

A PDF of this statement is available online at http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/announce_lca-agvhathitrust_14sept11.pdf

The LCA consists of three major library associations - the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries and the Association of College and Research Libraries. These three associations collectively represent over 300,000 information professionals and thousands of libraries of all kinds throughout the US and Canada.

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The Association of Research Libraries has released a 'Resource Packet on Orphan Works: Legal and Policy Issues for Research Libraries.'

Prepared by Prudence Adler, Jonathan Band, and Brandon Butler, the resource packet provides general information on legal and policy issues concerning orphan works and the University of Michigan's Orphan Works Project, an FAQ, and a legal memorandum by Jonathan Band, policybandwidth, which describes the legal issues associated with making orphan works digitally available.

The resource packet is not a comprehensive response to or analysis of the recent lawsuit filed by three authors' groups and eight individual authors against HathiTrust and five of its partners. It will, however, help readers understand some of the core issues in that suit, including the scope and applicability of fair use to orphan works.

The Resource Packet is available online at http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/resource_orphanworks_13sept11.pdf.

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The Authors Guild, the Australian Society of Authors, the Union Des Ecrivaines et des Ecrivains Quebecois (UNEQ) and eight individual authors recently filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in federal court against HathiTrust and five universities. These include the University of Michigan, the University of California, the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University and Cornell University. Plaintiff authors include children's book author and illustrator Pat Cummings, novelists Angelo Loukakis, Roxana Robinson, Daniele Simpson and Fay Weldon, poet Andre Roy, Columbia University professor and Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro, and Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning biographer T.J. Stiles.

The universities obtained from Google unauthorised scans of an estimated 7 million copyright-protected books, the rights to which are held by authors in dozens of countries. The universities have pooled the unauthorised files in a repository organised by the University of Michigan called HathiTrust. In June, Michigan announced plans to permit unlimited downloads by its students and faculty members of copyright-protected works it deems 'orphans' according to rules the school has established. Other universities joined in Michigan's project in August.

The plaintiffs point out that the American universities do not have the authority to decide whether, when or how authors forfeit their copyright protection. They further say authors from the other parts of the world may not even know that their works have been determined to be 'orphans' by an American group. The complaint also questions the security of the 7 million unauthorised digital files.

The first set of so-called orphans, 27 works by French, Russian and American authors, is scheduled to be released to an estimated 250,000 students and faculty members on October 13, 2011. An additional 140 books, including works in Spanish, Yiddish, French and Russian, are to be released starting in November.

Google's library scanning project is already the subject of a federal class-action lawsuit in New York. A status conference in that case is scheduled before Judge Denny Chin on September 15.

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Three French publishers - Editions Albin Michel SA, Editions Gallimard SA and Flammarion - have reportedly dropped a $13.8 million lawsuit against Internet search services provider Google, Inc. over books scanned by the company. With this move, the publishers seek to resume negotiations to reach a deal on scanning copyright-protected works for Google's digital library.

Google recently announced agreements with Lagardere SCA (MMB)'s Hachette Livre and La Martiniere Groupe publishers to allow the scanning of out-of-print French books.

According to Philippe Colombet, Google Books' French director, the company is keen to discuss constructively and work with publishers around the world to preserve and disseminate important cultural treasures, and to find new business opportunities for authors and publishers.

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The Second Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a lower court decision finding that the 'First Sale' doctrine in the US copyright law - the provision that enables libraries to lend and consumers to re-sell books they have lawfully purchased - does not apply to works manufactured outside the US. The verdict has reportedly put librarians' and book re-sellers' core activities now in question.

The publishing industry has long fought the 'illegal importation of foreign works,' especially textbooks. While the verdict is seen to stand as a major victory for the publishing industry, critics say the decision could harm libraries and encourage outsourcing of jobs.

The ruling comes in the case of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. v. Supap Kirtsaeng, in which Kirtsaeng, a Thai-born US student, was accused of importing and re-selling foreign editions of textbooks, made for exclusive sale abroad, in the US market via eBay. In its verdict, a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit affirmed by a 2-1 margin that Kirtsaeng 'could not avail himself of the first sale doctrine,' because language in the statute says that products must be 'lawfully made.'

According to a report published in the Publishers Weekly, the court ruled that the words 'lawfully made' limits First Sale 'specifically and exclusively to works that are made in territories in which the Copyright Act is law, and not to foreign-manufactured works.'

The verdict is the second decision in a year to limit the First Sale doctrine. In December 2010, the Supreme Court deadlocked 4-4 in the case of Costco Wholesale Corporation v. Omega, SA, the net effect of which was to affirm a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that enjoined big-box store Costco from selling copyrighted, foreign-made Omega watches, authorised for sale only in foreign territories, in the US market. Because the Supreme Court deadlocked, however, the Ninth Circuit ruling is non-binding on other circuits. The Second Circuit ruling, observers say, goes further than the Omega decision, and could upend decades of common practice for libraries and used booksellers.

According to experts, the ruling creates uncertainty and gives publishers yet another potential element of control when it comes to library usage, and at a time when the shift to licensed access of e-books is already impacting the ability of libraries to purchase and lend content.

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Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, is reportedly calling off another 10 of its less successful ventures. The move is seen to be part of Google's Chief Executive Larry Page's continuing efforts to streamline the company's operations. Since his appointment in January, Page has been determined to move Google away from niche businesses and focus on the bigger products.

According to the company, all existing Google staff working on these closed ventures will be moved to other posts throughout the company.

Aardvark will face the axe, despite Google spending a reported $50 million on the purchase of the social search engine in 2010. Other products to be euthanised include Desktop, Fast Flip, Google Maps API for Flash, Google Pack, Google Web Security, Image Labeller, Notebook, Sidewiki and Subscribed Links. All of these ventures are being shut down due to low demand.

They join a growing list of Google operations shut down under Page's short era of leadership. Earlier, in June, the company announced the closure of Google Health and Google PowerMeter. It even closed down its mobile photo-sharing service Photovine just a week after launching it.

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Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, has reportedly made progress on four copyright-protection initiatives it outlined in December 2010.

The company, which has faced severe criticism for years over copyright issues, has completed building tools that now allow it to act on valid complaints from copyright owners in 24 hours or less on average. The tools will allow Google to act upon complaints from copyright owners that their content is appearing without permission on Google sites, starting with Blogger and Web search.

The tools simplify the process of submitting these complaint notices, which cite the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) when requesting that their works be removed from websites.

According to Kent Walker, a Google Senior Vice President and General Counsel, the tools are now being successfully used by more than a dozen content industry partners. These partners together account for over 75 percent of all URLs submitted in DMCA takedowns for Web Search. In the near future, Google will make the tools more broadly available to copyright owners that have a track record of 'valid' takedown requests, the company has said.

Google has also strengthened its process for detecting web publishers that attempt to use the company's AdSense advertising programme to display ads on pages that contain copyright-infringing content.

Google is also taking steps to give more prominent placement on its search results to authorised preview content. Additionally, the company is increasing the amount of legitimate content available through its sites.

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Over a dozen high-profile Canadian research universities have reportedly said that they will not renew their agreements with Access Copyright, a government-run non-profit that sells licences to its library of copyright-cleared content. The institutions include the University of Calgary, the University of British Columbia and York University.

The Canadian issue on licensing agreements is seen to be similar to that reported recently in the US. Professors and librarians in the US are awaiting a judge’s ruling on a copyright lawsuit by publishers against Georgia State University over its e-reserves practices.

The stated idea of the licences is to allow professors to include copyrighted works among their course materials without having to ask permission from copyright holders at every turn. Access Copyright is striving to more than double the fee for its ‘comprehensive licences’ from $18 to $45 per student. Moreover, with the company asking that it be allowed to survey its clients' private networks so as to ensure compliance, many universities have said that they would prefer to drop the clearinghouse licences and go it alone.

The Access Copyright issue and Georgia State lawsuit are unfolding in vastly different legal environments. Canadian copyright law does not include ‘fair use’ exemptions for teaching. Its ‘fair dealing’ exemptions provide no special dispensation for educators and only protect scholars who want to make copies for ‘private study.’

For the University of British Columbia, the fee hike being sought by Access Copyright would increase the university’s annual payment to the clearinghouse from $650,000 per year to $2 million, according to David H. Farrar, the provost there. The university also objected to Access Copyright’s proposal that it should be granted full access to the campus and its secure networks to survey the materials posted to course websites and elsewhere. This condition also drew the ire of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), which is concerned that such monitoring might compromise the privacy of the association’s members.

The University of British Columbia will be ending its deal with Access Copyright, effective Thursday. The task of clearing copyrights for course packs has been delegated to the campus bookstore, which binds and sells the packs. Faculty who want to post outside materials to course websites are urged to clear copyrights themselves.

Officials at Access Copyright say they do not think universities can clear all copyrights on their own.

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Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, has announced an agreement with French publishing house La Martiniere Groupe for the scanning of books that are no longer on sale but still protected by copyright. The deal is the second major agreement that Google has signed with a publishing house, following a controversy over its digital library project.

Under the latest deal, Google and La Martiniere will jointly set up a catalogue of books to be scanned that are no longer sold by the publisher. The publisher will decide which books Google is allowed to scan, and which of the scanned books can then be sold on Google's Ebooks platform. The two groups will reportedly share any revenue generated through a sale. According to a spokeswoman for Google France, the bulk of the revenue will go to the publisher.

In a joint statement issued by Google and La Martiniere, the companies have said that the agreement puts an end to the legal action that the publisher launched against the former in 2006.

In 2010, Google announced a similar deal with Hachette Livre, a unit of Lagardere SCA. The terms of the deal with La Martiniere are similar to the deal with Hachette Livre. The deal was then seen as setting a standard for how publishing companies can make money via the digitalisation of books still under their copyright protection but no longer sold in stores.

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Antitrust regulators in the US are reportedly focusing their investigation of Google, Inc. on key areas of its business. This includes the company's Android mobile-phone software and web-search related services.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, almost six weeks after serving Google with broad subpoenas, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lawyers, together with several state attorney generals, have been enquiring whether Google prevents smartphone manufacturers that use its Android operating system from using competitors' services. They are also looking into allegations that Google unfairly acquires information collected by rivals to use on its own specialised site and then devalues the rivals' services in its search results.

The European Commission, which has imposed restrictions on Microsoft Corp.'s ability to leverage its dominant computer operating system to promote other services, has been running its own broad antitrust probe against Google since 2010.

Google has denied that it engages in unfair or illegal competitive practices. According to the company, the growing number of antitrust investigations has been stimulated by rivals anxious about its aggressive push into new business sectors.

As part of its probe, the FTC is reportedly preparing to send out civil subpoenas to third parties to provide documents and evidence in its investigation. Investigators have already held a series of exploratory meetings and interviews with Google, its competitors and other third parties, providing inputs on the kinds of areas they're concerned about.

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Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, is reportedly facing new protests following the company's decision to stop copying information from other local websites for use in its own rival service, Google Places. The reversal brought calls for Google to stop using other types of content from rival sites, and for regulators to take action against the company for its past practices in the local information market. The company's critics are seeking a legal commitment from the company to not to revert to its earlier practice.

The turnaround is seen as the first sign of Google changing its business practices since the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) launched a broad antitrust investigation into the company last month. Last year a similar review began in Europe.

According to Google, it will no longer carry parts of reviews posted on other local web services on Google Places, which carries information about local businesses. Rival services such as Yelp, which heavily depend on user-generated ratings and reviews to draw an audience, have objected to Google using information from their users to give an unfair advantage to its own service.

Google announced this change in practice a little over a week after its legal director, Dana Wagner, came under attack about the practice from opponents at a conference of US state attorneys-general. A number of states have reportedly begun their own investigations into Google's business practices, echoing the FTC study.

Google's critics have also called on regulators to take action against it over its previous copying of content on Places.

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A US judge has given Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, two more months to come up with a proposal to create digital library Google Books in such a way that it does not violate copyright law.

In a recent hearing, Judge Denny Chin of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit set a new hearing date for September 15. By this date, Google must reportedly present a 'fair' way to reward book publishers and authors for re-printing snippets of their content online. Google and publishers have been working on such a deal since 2005.

According to media reports, Chin said at the hearing that if the matter is not resolved by September 15 he will take a decision on it by himself. Chin first heard the case in 2009 when he was a district judge for New York. He kept the case after he was promoted to the federal appeals court in 2010.

According to a Google spokesperson, the company has been working closely with authors and publishers to explore a number of options in response to the court's decision. It has reportedly asked for more time to discuss these options. Regardless of the outcome, Google will continue to make books discoverable and useful through Google Books and Google eBooks, the spokesperson said.

In 2005, the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild sued Google for re-printing and cataloguing book snippets without their authors' permission. Google said in October 2008 that it would pay $125 million to settle the lawsuit. However, numerous parties including Microsoft, Amazon and the Department of Justice condemned the agreement and said it continued to violate copyright law.

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Earlier this year, Judge Chin upended the $125 million settlement and forced Google and publishers to re-negotiate a more fair way of creating Google Books. In his judgment, he said the settlement would have given Google a 'de facto monopoly.'

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The Spine Journal, the official publication of the North American Spine Society, has published a series of articles alleging that side-effects were downplayed or omitted in scientific articles about a Medtronic product used in spine surgery. The June issue of the journal focuses on the limitations of industry-sponsored research. It is also mooting transparency initiatives to protect the integrity of scientific publishing.

The latest issue is dedicated to a review of recombinant bone morphogenetic protein-2 (rhBMP-2), a controversial synthetic bone growth product often used in spine fusion surgeries. Early industry-sponsored clinical research on rhBMP-2, published in a variety of orthopaedic and spine-related medical journals, reported no adverse events or complications in hundreds of patients. However, in recent years, the use of rhBMP-2 has been associated with various early inflammatory reactions, cancer, osteolysis, infection, implant dislodgement and occasional life-threatening complications. A separate study also in the June issue of the Spine Journal suggests that rhBMP-2 usage could cause a higher incidence of male sterility than previously described by industry-sponsored researchers.

After reviewing the findings and articles in this special issue, a blue-ribbon panel of spine experts wrote an editorial titled 'A challenge to integrity in spine publications: years of living dangerously with the promotion of bone growth factors.'

Prompted by complaints to journal editors and media reports of questionable research and publishing practices, a review was conducted for the article titled 'A critical review of rhBMP-2 trials in spinal surgery: emerging safety concerns and lessons learned.' This comprehensive review of the 13 original industry-sponsored rhBMP-2 studies found that authors - many with financial ties to the sponsor - reported 10-50 times fewer complications with rhBMP-2 than were found in the original FDA summaries or other documents. The review was led by Eugene J. Carragee, MD of the Stanford University School of Medicine, Redwood City, CA and the editor-in-chief of the Spine Journal.

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The British Library and Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, have announced a partnership to digitise 250,000 out-of-copyright books from the former's collections. Selected by the British Library and digitised by Google, both organisations will work in partnership over the coming years to deliver this content free through Google Books and the British Library's website (www.bl.uk). Google will cover all digitisation costs.

The project will digitise a huge range of printed books, pamphlets and periodicals dated 1700 to 1870. It will include material in a variety of major European languages, and will focus on books that are not yet freely available in digital form online. Once digitised, these items will be available for full text search, download and reading through Google Books, as well as being searchable through the Library's website and stored in perpetuity within the Library's digital archive. Researchers, students and other users of the Library will be able to view historical items from anywhere in the world as well as copy, share and manipulate text for non-commercial purposes.

The partnership is seen to demonstrate the Library's commitment to working with the private sector to digitise parts of its collections. Recently, it announced a partnership with brightsolid to digitise up to 40 million pages of its newspaper collections. Previously, the Library also partnered with Microsoft to digitise 65,000 19th century books, some of which are now available as an app on Apple's iPad.

It is also planned to make the works available via Europeana, the European Digital Library.

Google has partnered with over 40 libraries around the world.

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The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has reportedly concluded an antitrust investigation into Google's bid for a collection of wireless-related patents from Canadian telecommunications-equipment maker Nortel. The DoJ approved the bid, while talks with Research in Motion (RIM) and Apple over their potential bids remain ongoing.

According to a report published in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Google has been given the go-ahead on its $900 million starting bid in an auction of over 6,000 patents from Nortel.

Earlier this month, the WSJ reported that the DoJ had not found any 'major competitive' issues with Google. The department is reportedly worried about RIM or Apple winning the auction because both have a reputation for being aggressive with intellectual property.

The auction is scheduled for June 20, with Google's 'stalking horse' bid to serve as the opening amount. The patent trove contains key components of the fourth-generation Long Term Evolution wireless technology.

Earlier this week, Microsoft, Verizon and AT&T filed objections to the sale. The companies claimed that the sale would affect essential technologies and provide the winner with an unfair advantage over its competitors. Nokia and HP have also filed objections.

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Intellectual property management company ISYS Technologies, US, has reportedly filed a lawsuit against Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, alleging that the latter is violating and interfering with the trademark of its ChromiumPC Modular Computer.

The suit seeks an expedited temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against Google and its partners (Acer, Amazon.com, Best Buy and Samsung) to stop further marketing efforts of the Chromebook and Chromebox PC products, as well as plans to begin selling these PC products on or about June 15, 2011. All five companies are named in the federal lawsuit that was filed in the US District Court at Utah.

Slated for general availability in the second half of 2011, the ChromiumPC is a version of the company's Xi3 Modular Computer which was formally unveiled in 2010. It was named by the Consumer Electronics Association as an Innovations Award Winner in the Computer Hardware category for the 2011 International CES trade show.

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A judge in New York has agreed to give lawyers of Google and the book industry more time to decide how to proceed after he rejected their deal to create a massive online library.

Federal Circuit Judge Denny Chin in Manhattan said that it was fine for lawyers of Google and authors and publishers to return to his courtroom on July 19, 2011, to discuss how they want to proceed.

Chin said the issues are complicated. In March, he rejected the Google Book Settlement Agreement citing antitrust concerns and the need for involvement from Congress. He had then ruled that the agreement would grant Google significant rights to exploit entire books, without the permission of copyright owners and would give Google a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission, while releasing claims well beyond the case.

An attorney for the publishers, Bruce Keller, spoke for all parties when he said they needed several more weeks to figure out all the issues.

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The European Commission (EC) recently published a policy blueprint for dealing with intellectual property (IP) rights. The coordinated EU approach promises among other things to focus on service providers in the fight against online copyright infringement.

Piracy and counterfeiting are seen to pose a threat to the EU's economy by undercutting the price of authentic products and making it harder for honest producers to stay in business. To counter the problem, the EC proposes to modernise the EU's IP right laws, which protect literary, musical and artistic works (copyright), discoveries and inventions (patents), and words, phrases, symbols and designs (trademarks).

People would reportedly benefit from easier access to protected works and the assurance that products and services they buy are genuine and safe.

IP rights are stated to be vital for Europe's 25 million small and mid-size businesses - protecting their investment in new products and services, helping them secure access to financing and increasing fair competition. Businesses and inventors would benefit from a simpler patent system, which is currently seen to be too complex and costly. A switch away from counterfeit and pirated goods to legitimate trading would also boost tax revenues for EU governments.

The proposed changes include creating a unitary patent-protection system so inventors would need to register only one patent covering most EU countries - reducing costs and red tape; protecting brands more effectively through a modernised trademark system that is simpler, faster, more effective, efficient and consistent; and easing access to copyright-protected works, particularly online and including Europe's cultural heritage.

The approach also sets out a more effective enforcement strategy within the EU, at its borders and in partnership with non-EU countries. The EC will make specific proposals before 2014.

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The British Library has welcomed the positive recommendations made to the Government by the Hargreaves Review, proposing an intellectual property (IP) framework designed to increase growth and innovation in the UK.

The report has recognised the importance of copyright in the digital age to education and research. Hargreaves' recommendations, including those relating to the digitisation of orphan works, text and data mining and digital preservation, are expected to have an immediate benefit for research, life-long learning and teaching. Dame Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive of the British Library, particularly welcomed the recommendations for legislation to ensure that hard won copyright exceptions are protected and cannot be overridden by individual contracts. She also praised the proposal to create the world's first Digital Copyright Exchange by the end of 2012.

The British Library's submission to the Hargreaves Review called for reforms to make it easier for cultural institutions to digitise orphan works - including millions of items held in national collections where the rights-holder cannot be identified - and thereby deliver benefits for research and education. The Library also supported measures to allow text and data mining with a view to encouraging medical, environmental and other scientific research. These would be along with streamlined processes for clearing rights for commercially-produced works to be used in digital libraries and other cultural projects.

The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers and the UK's Joint Information Systems Committee have also welcomed the recommendations.

Of particular interest to publishers will be the rejection of US-style 'fair-use' laws, support for the Digital Economy Act, the creation of a Digital Copyright Exchange and harmonisation with EU laws, particularly copyright exceptions. In addition, it was recommended that accessibility to the IP system for small companies be improved, including lowering the cost barriers.

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The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) has released a statement describing the key features copyright reform proposals should include in order to constitute significant improvement over current law for libraries and their users.

Interested parties are discussing with renewed vigor the issues of orphan works, mass digitisation, and even modernisation of Section 108 of the US Copyright Act in the wake of the Google Books settlement rejection by Judge Denny Chin of the Southern District of New York. The LCA statement, which represents the needs of library stakeholders in these debates, provides helpful guideposts for these discussions.

Libraries have always advocated for reasonable copyright policy - in the courts as well as in the US Congress. Library activities already benefit from broad, flexible protection under the fair use doctrine and related provisions in current law. The LCA's statement describes the status quo for libraries as well as the policies that would constitute substantial legislative improvement to existing copyright law.

The statement is available online at http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/lca_copyrightreformstatement_16may11.pdf.

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Three French publishers - Gallimard, Flammarion and Albin Michel - have reportedly sued US-based Internet search services provider Google, Inc. for scanning their books for its online library without permission.

The publishers are demanding $14 billion as compensation. They claim that Google has scanned 9,797 copyright-protected works for its digital library.

In an e-mailed statement, Google said the company had been working with French publishers for some time to find ways to increase audiences and revenue opportunities for publishers, authors and booksellers. It believes the Google Books project complies with French law and international copyright rules.

In December 2009, a Paris court had said Google's book project violated French copyrights. It had then ordered the company to stop scanning works without permission. Six months ago, Google reached an agreement with Lagardere SCA (MMB)'s Hachette Livre publishing to allow the scanning of out-of-print French books.

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US-based Google, Inc. and Apple, Inc. reportedly defended their privacy practices during a US Senate hearing on May 10, 2011. The hearing, 'Protecting Mobile Privacy: Your Smartphones, Tablets, Cell Phones and Your Privacy,' followed revelations by British researchers and the Wall Street Journal that the iPhone and Android smartphones may transmit user location data to Apple and Google, respectively.

Google was represented by its Director of Public Policy, Alan Davidson, and Apple by its Vice President of software, "Bud" Tribble. Both executives emphasised that their users had the ability to control the collection and use of location-related data gathered by their smartphones. The hearing of the newly created Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, sought to examine the situation of the privacy landscape as regards the mobile sphere.

Senator Al Franken pressed Tribble hard on the issue of whether or not iPhones do or do not track location. The hearing also focused on the vast ecosystem of third-party applications that populate both the iPhone and Android ecosystems. Such third-party apps are seen to often gain access to location related and other personally identifiable data. They may also be able to share the information without having to tell the consumer they are doing so, it is feared.

Senator Chuck Schumer also grilled both companies about their policies regarding how apps are approved for their respective stores, focusing on apps that provide information about where sobriety checkpoints are located.

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A US Senate panel is reportedly set to question representatives from Apple and Google on what actions the companies plan to take to protect consumers' privacy while using mobile devices. According to Sen. Al Franken, Chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, the hearing is the first step in making certain that federal laws protecting consumers' privacy keep pace with advances in technology. This is particularly so in the context of mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets and cell phones.

Franken further said that, while advances in mobile technology let Americans stay connected, the same know-how allows the devices to gather sensitive information about users, including recording their movements.

The hearing follows revelations by British researchers and the Wall Street Journal that the iPhone and Android smartphones may transmit user location data to Apple and Google, respectively.

However, according to Google spokesperson Chris Gaither, the company gives users notice and control over all location collection and sharing on Android-powered gadgets.

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A Massachusetts court has reportedly allowed Skyhook Wireless to go forward with its lawsuit against Google. The company has accused the search giant with trying to muscle Skyhook's Wi-Fi location technology out of the Android market. Judge Judith Fabricant of the Massachusetts Superior court denied Google's request to either grant a summary judgment or dismiss the case.

Skyhook Wireless is a Boston-based company that has developed a technology for determining geographical location using Wi-Fi as the underlying reference system. In September 2010, the company filed two lawsuits against Google - one in US District Court in Massachusetts and a second in Massachusetts state court.

The state suit, filed in Suffolk County Superior Court, claims that Google used its relationship with handset makers, specifically Motorola, to keep the Skyhook client software off their phones.

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The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is reportedly preparing an investigation of Google Inc's dominance of the Internet search industry. Citing three people familiar with the matter, media reports indicate that the FTC is alerting high-tech companies to gather information for the probe.

The agency has reportedly informed the companies of its plans to issue civil investigative demands for the information. The demands are similar to subpoenas.

The FTC, which has been considering a broad investigation, was awaiting a decision by the Justice Department on whether it will dispute Google's planned acquisition of ITA Software, Inc., an airline flight and ticket information provider, before proceeding with any probe.

Earlier this month, the Justice Department approved Google's $700 million purchase of ITA subject to the condition that it makes travel data available to search-engine rivals and let the government review complaints that it's acting unfairly.

Google is facing increasing scrutiny from regulators globally as it bolsters its search business. The European Commission and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott have also begun probes into its business practices. The company is also facing antitrust complaints in South Korea due to the increasing dominance of its Android software for mobile phones.

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A Texas jury has reportedly ruled against Internet search services provider, Google, Inc., US, in a suit that alleged some of its use of open source Linux code amounted to patent infringement. In the verdict, the jury decided that Google should pay $5 million for the infringement. This ruling is believed to have big implications for other companies using Linux technology and other open source systems.

The suit, filed in June 2009 by Bedrock Computer Technologies, also named the likes of Yahoo, MySpace, Amazon, PayPal, Match.com and AOL as defendants in the suit. The firm filed the suit against the defendants in question for violation of Patent 5,893,120, detailing methods and apparatus for information storage and retrieval using a hashing technique with external chaining and on-the-fly removal of expired data.

The ruling is reportedly the first patent infringement award over the Linux kernel, which is used in all versions of the operating system, including the Android smartphone software.

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Internet search services company Google, Inc., US, is reportedly facing antitrust complaints in South Korea due to the increasing dominance of its Android software for mobile phones. In a joint complaint to South Korea's Fair Trade Commission, Korean Internet portal operators NHN Corp. and Daum Communications Corp. said Google was unfairly impeding competition by using its status as a leading smartphone operating system provider, it has been reported.

The two companies, which operate South Korea's two largest Internet search sites, filed complaints against Google for blocking domestic phone carriers and manufacturers from embedding their search apps in Android devices.

Google is facing increasing scrutiny from regulators globally as it bolsters its search business. The US Federal Trade Commission is reportedly considering a broad investigation into the company's dominance of the Internet search industry. The European Commission and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott have also begun probes into its business practices.

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The US' Federal Trade Commission (FTC) may soon join the list of government agencies investigating Google's dominance of the Internet search industry. Citing two people familiar with the matter, media reports indicate that the FTC is considering an antitrust investigation of Google in this regard.

The FTC is awaiting a decision by the Justice Department on whether it will dispute Google's planned acquisition of ITA Software, Inc., an airline flight and ticket information provider, before proceeding with any probe.

According to a Bloomberg report, the FTC and the Justice Department share responsibility for investigating antitrust claims and could negotiate which agency would lead a major investigation into Google. The Justice Department is expected to issue a decision soon on the $700 million ITA deal.

According to a ComScore market research report, Google fields nearly 67 percent of Internet searches in the US. This domination has led to increased scrutiny of the company over the past several years. Officials in Texas and the European Commission have launched investigations into Google's search dominance, while Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is considering such a probe.

Earlier last week rival Microsoft Corp. filed an official complaint with the EU, claiming that Google engages in a 'pattern of actions' that impede competition unfairly. The company gave several examples of what it believes are anticompetitive acts.

Lawmakers including Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, and Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, have urged the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust to hold a hearing on Google's dominance of Internet businesses.

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The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) has announced the release of 'A Guide for the Perplexed Part IV: The Rejection of the Google Books Settlement,' an analysis of the latest decision in the Google Books Search case and its potential effect on libraries. The LCA is comprised of the Association for Research Libraries (ARL), the American Library Association (ALA), and the Association for College & Research Libraries (ACRL).

This guide is the latest in a series prepared by LCA legal counsel Jonathan Band to help inform the library community about this landmark legal dispute. In the Guide Part IV, Band explains why the Court rejected the proposed class action settlement, which would have allowed Google to engage in a wide variety of activities using scanned books.

As for the impact of the decision on libraries, Band writes that while it is too early to say what the parties will do next, it appears that both the challenges and the opportunities presented to libraries by the settlement when it was announced in the fall of 2008 are growing narrower and more distant.

The full text of the Guide is available online at http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/guideiv-final-1.pdf.

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Stanford University has expressed its disappointment with the latest ruling in the Google Books Agreement case. The university is analysing the decision and will consult with other libraries participating in Google's digitisation project.

US Circuit Judge Denny Chin had said the deal between Google and publishers 'goes too far.' But Stanford does not have to halt its project of digitising the books in the university's libraries - over 2 million have been scanned since 2004.

Google reached a $125 million settlement with authors and publishers after the company was sued for copyright infringement in 2005, shortly after starting to make digital copies of every published book. The recent decision by Judge Chin in Manhattan said the deal would give Google 'a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission.'

Stanford has not been part of the lawsuit but supported the settlement. It argued that digitising its books would preserve fragile volumes, make them easily accessible and allow researchers to efficiently scan and mine them for information that would otherwise require reading entire works. Google has scanned about 2 million books owned by Stanford, and more than 24 other major libraries are involved in the project.

Michael Keller, the university's librarian, said Chin's decision leaves unanswered several issues, including how to create a universal library; how long books should be protected by copyright; and how to deal with access to orphan works - books that are still under copyright protection but are not necessarily marketable and have no identifiable copyright holder.

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A US judge recently rejected the Google Book Settlement Agreement, a proposed deal between Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, and the book industry that would have put millions of volumes online, media reports have indicated. He cited antitrust concerns and the need for involvement from Congress, while acknowledging the potential benefit of putting literature in front of the masses. The Google initiative was aimed at allowing readers to access books via digital devices.

Circuit Judge Denny Chin in Manhattan ruled that the agreement would "grant Google significant rights to exploit entire books, without the permission of copyright owners" and would "give Google a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission, while releasing claims well beyond the case."

Judge Chin also reportedly found the deal raised antitrust problems. He noted that the settlement "would give Google a de facto monopoly over unclaimed works"; the settlement "would arguably give Google control over the search market"; and Google's ability to deny competitors the ability to search orphan books would further entrench the company's market power in the online search market.

A representative of the publisher plaintiffs has said they are now looking to enter into a narrower settlement. The plaintiffs include McGraw-Hill, Pearson Education, Penguin Group (USA), Simon & Schuster, John Wiley & Sons, Association of American Publishers, Harlequin Enterprises, Macmillan Publishers, Melbourne University Publishing and The Text Publishing Company.

Consumer Watchdog, a US-based consumer advocacy group that had filed two amicus briefs opposing the Books Settlement, praised the latest ruling against Google. The organisation aims to protect consumers' online privacy rights and educate them about the issues through its Inside Google Project.

The $125 million Google Books settlement had drawn hundreds of objections from Google rivals, consumer watchdogs, academic experts, literary agents and even foreign governments. Google already has scanned more than 15 million books for the project. According to the judge, the Congress should ultimately decide who should be entrusted with guardianship over orphan books and under what terms, rather than the issue being resolved by private, self-interested parties.

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Copyright enforcement firm Righthaven, US, reportedly lost a lawsuit last week in a ruling that a nonprofit's reposting of an entire newspaper article was a lawful fair use. The ruling, if upheld on appeal, could possibly change the way that copyrighted newspaper articles get treated on the web.

Righthaven is seen to have garnered controversy by suing 250 different blogs and websites over newspaper copyrights. With the latest ruling, the company has lost its second case. The first finding of fair use was over a website that only quoted about 25 percent of a Las Vegas Review-Journal (R-J) story.

In general, 'fair use' is the rule that justifies partial use of a copyrighted work. Fair use allows for quotation in a book review or news report. However, in certain situations, judges have found 100 percent of a work to be fair use. In a hearing on March 18, US District Judge James Mahan found this case as one of those circumstances. He ruled that it was legal for Oregon non-profit Center for Intercultural Organizing (CIO) to post a full copy of a newspaper article from R-J on its website. The judge based his decision on several factors including that CIO serves a completely different market than the R-J.

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Social networking sites and search engines such as Facebook and Google may face legal action if they fail to obey planned EU data privacy rules, according to EU justice chief Viviane Reding.

Reding will propose an overhaul of the EU's 16-year-old laws on data protection in the coming months. The move is expected to enforce more safeguards on how personal information is used. According to a Reuters report, much of the revamp would target sites such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft or Yahoo. These sites are reportedly raising concern on how they use information they collect about users' personal habits.

Reding wants to force companies to allow Internet users to withdraw any data held by the websites, calling it the 'right to be forgotten'. She also wants to make the firms provide more information on what data is collected and for what purpose. Further, she feels agencies watching over privacy issues in EU countries should be given more powers to enforce compliance outside Europe as many of the companies are based in the US or hold data on servers there.

Reding, who oversees justice and human rights in the executive European Commission, said that to enforce EU law, national privacy watchdogs shall be endowed with powers to investigate and engage in legal proceedings against non-EU data controllers. Her proposals, expected before July, would have to be approved by EU governments and by the European Parliament.

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The US Supreme Court is set to review the constitutionality of restoring copyrights in foreign works, which is likely to affect the status of many famous works. The Court recently granted the petition for a writ of certiorari filed by lawyers from Stanford Law School's Fair Use Project (FUP) and Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell LLP. Following this, it will review the constitutionality of a federal statute that has removed thousands of foreign works from the public domain and placed them under copyright protection.

The case is seen to present a two-pronged constitutional challenge to the 1994 law passed by Congress - an amendment to the Copyright Act, the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA). The case will test whether Congress has the authority to remove works from the public domain under the "Progress Clause"; and whether the 1994 law violates the First Amendment rights of those who performed, adapted, restored and distributed works which had previously been in the public domain. These works include symphonies by Sergei Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky and Dmitri Shostakovich; books by C.S. Lewis, Virginia Woolf and H.G. Wells; films by Federico Fellini, Alfred Hitchcock and Jean Renoir; and artwork by M.C. Escher and Pablo Picasso, including Picasso's masterpiece Guernica.

The FUP filed the petition in October 2010 on behalf of orchestra conductors, educators, performers, film archivists and motion picture distributors who relied for years on the free availability of works in the public domain, which they performed, adapted, restored and distributed. The URAA had removed these works and many others from the public domain and placed them under copyright protection in conjunction with the implementation of intellectual property treaties. That amendment affected the copyright status of thousands of works by foreign authors that had been in the public domain in the US for decades.

Petitioners Lawrence Golan, Estate of Richard Kapp, S.A. Publishing Co., Inc., Symphony of the Canyons, Ron Hall and John McDonough originally filed suit in 2001, contending that in enacting the URAA, Congress exceeded its Article I power and violated the First Amendment. A lower court rejected both claims and dismissed the case in 2005. In a 2007 decision, the Tenth Circuit revived the petitioners' First Amendment challenge. Following that decision, the same lower court held the URAA was unconstitutional under the First Amendment. The Tenth Circuit reversed that decision last summer, holding the URAA did not violate the First Amendment. Now, the Supreme Court has agreed to review that decision.

The specific constitutional provisions at issue in the case are the Progress Clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 8) and the First Amendment. The Progress Clause - sometimes called the "Copyright Clause" - gives Congress the power to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." Petitioners contend that removing material from the public domain violates the "limited times" restriction and the URAA as enacted does not "promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts." Petitioners contend the URAA violates the First Amendment because it is not narrowly tailored to any important government interest.

The FUP was founded in 2006 as part of the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society. Its purpose is to provide legal support to a range of projects designed to clarify, and extend, the boundaries of "fair use" in order to enhance creative freedom. The Project's homepage is at: http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/taxonomy/term/374.

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The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) has submitted its response to the call for evidence by Professor Hargreaves and his team to contribute to his Review of Intellectual Property and Growth. This is the latest in a number of recent reviews of the UK intellectual property framework seeking to ensure that the regime is fit for purpose in the digital age.

The ALPSP believes that the existing IP framework in the UK is appropriate, effective and balanced and has contributed substantially to the innovation and growth of the UK publishing industry. Further, it feels that the intellectual property framework needs to be backed by education and appropriate enforcement.

The ALPSP welcomes additional measures supporting the enforcement of copyright infringement and the introduction of more widespread expression of digital rights to assist with the education of users of copyright material. Collective management organisations have an important role to play in assisting the end-user, the Association has said.

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Chinese authorities have reportedly ordered a number of academic journals and magazines to cease publication. In a new attack on sub-standard academic papers in China, the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP), the government agency that regulates overseas news and other publications, decided to penalise eight journals and ordered six to cease publication. These include Heilongjiang Science and Technology Information, China High Technology Enterprise and Today's Science Parks.

During a meeting last week, GAPP found that the publications were unable to guarantee the quality of academic papers. The 'punishment' meted out by GAPP to journals that fall short on quality, but are not ordered to be closed, reportedly include reconstituting the editorial board.

The Chinese authorities are determined to increase the supervision and the peer evaluation of academic journals. These are areas in which China is facing criticism internationally. The government reportedly wants to reduce the rapidly increasing number of journals published and bring in more quality control.

In 2010, the Chinese government said that as of January 2011, new regulations would be in place to terminate the publication of poor journals. These would include the consolidation of academic publishing groups into 5-10 large publishers.

According to academics, almost every science organisation in China publishes its own journal. A survey conducted last year by four members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, revealed that academic journals can earn tens of millions of yuan a year by charging a publishing fee. The survey estimated the output value of published papers to be 180 to 240 million yuan (US$27.4 to $36.5 million) in 2009.

The National Natural Science Foundation in Beijing has complained for years that low-quality scientific journals have been hindering Chinese science. The Foundation has suggested that as many as a third of them should be shut down.

Other organisations have also openly said that the quality of research papers in China, which can be easily published in sub-standard journals, has been damaging the country's research reputation abroad. China's more reputable journals also have problems with quality. More than 30 percent of papers submitted to the Journal of Zhejiang University-Science, in the two years to September 2010, were found to be plagiarised after the journal brought in special cross-referencing software. The journal is designated as a key academic journal by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

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Copyright needs to evolve to current technological realities or risk becoming irrelevant, Francis Gurry, Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), has said. There was no 'single magical answer' to the development of a successful policy response to the challenges facing copyright in the digital age, he further said. What was required was a combination of law, infrastructure, cultural change, institutional collaboration and better business models. Gurry was speaking at a conference hosted by the Faculty of Law of Australia's Queensland University of Technology (QUT) on the future of copyright.

According to him, the central question facing the evolution of copyright policy is how to maintain a balance between the availability of cultural works at affordable prices while assuring a dignified economic existence for creators and performers. Digital technology was having a radical impact on those balances, he pointed out. Rather than resist it, we need to accept the inevitability of technological change and to seek an intelligent engagement with it.

There are three main principles that should guide the development of a successful policy response, Gurry stated. The first is neutrality to technology and to the business models developed in response to technology; the second principle is comprehensiveness and coherence in the policy response; and the third is the need for more simplicity in copyright.

Gurry further said copyright should be about promoting cultural dynamism, not preserving or promoting vested business interests. He recognised the need for a global infrastructure that permits simple, global licensing, one that makes the task of licensing cultural works legally on the Internet as easy as it is to obtain such works there illegally. Further, he stated that copyright was complicated and complex, reflecting the successive waves of technological development in the media of creative expression from printing through to digital technology, and the business responses to those different media. He warned about the risk of losing audience and public support if understanding of the system was not made more accessible.

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Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, is reportedly fighting a Belgian ruling that will bar the company from publishing links to local newspapers on its online news service, Google News. The hearing could decide the fate of search engines and referencing services in Europe, according to media reports.

Google is appealing a 2007 Belgian court ruling that its news search breached copyright laws, forcing it to remove links and snippets of articles from French- and German-language newspapers. According to the company's lawyers, the judge in that case seemed to have badly understood the functioning of Internet search services.

Copiepresse, a group that represents French- and German- language newspapers, and an association that represents journalists on copyright issues, were among those that filed the original lawsuit after Google News was introduced in Belgium in 2006.

In its February 13, 2007 ruling, the Brussels court ordered Google to pay €25,000 ($34,300) a day until it removed news content from Belgium's French- and German-language publications. Google had then removed articles, graphics and photos linked to the papers from all its sites and cached copies visible in searches.

Google presented its arguments on February 23, 2011 and the hearing is scheduled to resume in March. Company lawyers have presented to the court that Google gets no commercial benefit from linking articles because the news service is free. The newspapers reportedly have a second lawsuit pending against Google in which they seek up to €49.1 million for the period in which their content was visible on Google News.

According to Flip Petillion, a Brussels-based partner with Crowell & Moring LLP (who isn't involved in the matter), the case could end up in the EU's highest court due to its potential implications for search engines across Europe. The Belgian tribunal could ask the 27-nation EU's Court of Justice for guidance on how to interpret copyright rules in cases such as these. He further noted that if Google wins its appeal, it would also mean the ruling cannot be used against search engines in other European countries.

The Belgian newspapers argue that Google News doesn't generate enough traffic to their sites to make inclusion attractive. The service no longer references the newspapers involved in the case. Only Google's main search site lists the newspapers, such as La Libre Belgique and Le Soir, the most-read French-language daily in Brussels.

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Technology communications company VoIP, Inc., US, has reportedly filed a lawsuit against Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, in the New York Supreme Court. The company is accusing Google of stealing its trade secrets related to online voice technology.

The legal action stems from a September 2005 contract between Google and VoIP's Los Angeles-based subsidiary, VoiceOne Communications Corp. Under the deal, VoiceOne agreed to provide Google with its patented "Click to Call" technology that allows Internet users to place a call to advertisers or merchants simply by clicking a link on a website. The technology was designed to increase the value of online advertising by giving customers direct, free phone access to advertisers via their computers. VoIP is currently in bankruptcy proceedings.

VoiceOne was the designated carrier of phone calls initiated on Google websites under the agreement, according to the complaint. Google terminated the contract with VoiceOne in 2007, claiming that the company had violated a nondisclosure agreement by revealing that Google was its client, the suit said.

Google entered a 2006 joint venture with eBay and Skype related to Internet call services. VoiceOne argues that Google's justification for terminating the 2005 agreement was "a pretext" to allow the company to exploit VoiceOne's confidential information in its deal with eBay and Skype. The 'confidential information' includes source codes, algorithms and "know how" for monetising Internet phone calls.

The lawsuit claims trade secret theft, unfair competition, unjust enrichment and breach of contract and seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, disgorgement of illegal gains, an injunction and attorney's fees.

In a similar move, Frontier Communications sued Google in June 2010 over its Google Voice product, which gives users one phone number to connect their home, work and cell phones. Frontier, a provider of phone, Internet and satellite TV services, alleged that Google Voice infringed on its patented invention that linked multiple phone lines to a single number. That litigation is underway in the District Court of Delaware.

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Elisabeth A. Jones and Joseph W. Janes of the Information School at the University of Washington recently published an academic paper about the privacy implications of the Google Books project. The paper is entitled 'Anonymity in a World of Digital Books: Google Books, Privacy, and the Freedom to Read.'

Jones and Janes note that the fundamental goal of the American public library has - for more than a century - been to support the freedom of inquiry, and thereby the freedom of expression, necessary to the functioning of a free society. That freedom of inquiry requires that library patrons, or Google Books users, are afforded a modicum of privacy to read that which they want to read, without fear of reprisal or exposure.

As the library world stands now, the American Library Association (ALA) Code of Ethics places a very high value on patron privacy. Jones and Janes quote from the relevant passage which states that librarians should 'protect each library user's right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted.' They also note that many state laws prohibit the release of library data to unauthorised third parties, some even going so far as to specifically exempt library records from typically broad FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) laws.

Google, on the other hand, reportedly takes a very dim view of the freedom of inquiry that is enshrined in the ALA's code of ethics. The Google Books privacy policy explicitly states that Google will collect several types of information, the authors note, adding that the company reserves its right to aggregate usage data from Google Books with other data linked to users' Google Accounts. This means that one's book purchase history or personalised reading lists may be combined with one's usage data from Google Search, Gmail, Google Reader, Google Maps, Picasa, or any of the company's myriad other services.

The Open Book Alliance (OBA) has long argued that there are critical privacy implications of Google Books, and the authors are seen to sum up many of OBA's concerns very succinctly. According to them, by stripping away many of the traditional safeguards on reader privacy - whether legal, ethical, or situational - shifting free-of-charge, publicly available reading from libraries to Google Books complicates the capacity of the context to support truly unfettered inquiry and knowledge diffusion. For all the reasons already noted - controversial interests, the ability of reading material to reveal other things about the reader, or pure embarrassment - a lack of privacy with regard to the selection of reading materials can significantly chill individuals' desire and/or ability to explore as broadly as they might wish.

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J. Thomas Rosch, Commissioner of the US' Federal Trade Commission (FTC), has reportedly expressed concern over the privacy solutions unveiled by US-based Google, Inc. and Microsoft Corp. for their respective browsers. The features may actually work to the companies' benefit at the expense of rivals, he noted in remarks prepared for an appearance at the recently held American Bar Association's Consumer Protection Conference in Washington, DC. The Commissioner also expressed scepticism about the Do Not Track mechanism unveiled as a feature of the open-source Firefox browser.

Google and Microsoft recently launched technologies designed to prevent the monitoring of web users to serve them tailored advertising. The tools are seen as preventative gestures by the Internet giants, intended to appease regulators keen on bolstering online privacy. In December 2010, the FTC had proposed a 'Do Not Track' tool for Internet users.

According to the FTC, the tool ought to enable registered Internet users to browse without leaving a trail of data accessible to online advertisers. When the FTC issued its original privacy report endorsing the tool, Rosch issued a statement generally supportive of the idea. However, at the ABA event, he stated that his opinion was still evolving. He noted that unlike many other firms, Microsoft and Google draw a mixture of revenue from both display and search advertising. Display advertising that keys on user behaviour is seen to be a relatively minor aspect of Google's business, which relies heavily on search. Microsoft has invested heavily in its own search-advertising business, while also shouldering the operation of search services on Yahoo Inc.'s web pages as part of a revenue-sharing partnership.

The FTC released its preliminary privacy report in December. It opened the issue up to public comments until February 18. According to a Microsoft representative, the company is in the process of preparing comments on the matter, including discussion of the new 'tracking protection' feature for the company's Internet Explorer browser.

Google unveiled its Do Not Track tool in January 2011. Called Keep My Opt-Outs, the tool enables users of the company's Chrome Internet browser to avoid behavioral tracking.

Analysts say firms that rely heavily on behavioral targeting could be hurt by Do Not Track tools. While online privacy concerns have been increasingly raised by regulators, they have largely left it to the Internet industry to set its own standards. That's due in part to a desire to protect users without at the same time choking off advertising revenue that supports a variety of free Internet services and content.

According to a Marketwatch report, the FTC has lately expressed impatience with the Internet industry's own efforts to safeguard privacy. In December, the regulator said industry efforts at self-regulation "have been too slow, and up to now have failed to provide adequate and meaningful protection".

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The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has reportedly published a series of articles that state that the retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an 'elaborate fraud' based on the 'falsification of data'. An investigation published by the journal concludes that the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, manipulated or falsified the medical histories of all 12 patients whose cases formed the basis of a 1998 study.

The study, published in medical journal Lancet in 1998, was retracted in February 2010. In 2004, the Lancet issued a partial retraction of the study, citing Wakefield's 'fatal conflict of interest'.

In an editorial, BMJ editor Dr. Fiona Godlee, deputy editor Jane Smith and associate editor Harvey Marcovitch point out that in the decade after the study was first published, other research has failed to find a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

The BMJ articles examining Wakefield's research are written by investigative journalist Brian Deer, based on years of research into Wakefield's study. His first article questioning the research in 2004 spurred Britain's General Medical Council (GMC), which licenses doctors, to launch its own investigation into Wakefield and his work.

The BMJ editors are now calling for investigations into Wakefield's other studies in order to decide whether any others should be retracted.

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Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has reportedly re-filed his patent suit against Google, Apple and 11 other major tech companies, adding specific examples of the alleged infringement. In August 2010, he had caused a stir by accusing the companies of infringing on patents developed by his now-defunct company, Interval Research Corp. At issue are four patents related to online recommendations that were granted to Interval as long as 10 years ago. The research lab closed down about a decade ago, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In October, Apple teamed up with its fellow defendants to oppose the lawsuit by filing a motion to dismiss the charges. Earlier this month, a judge granted the motion and dismissed the lawsuit for being too vague. However, Allen was given time until December 28 to file an amended complaint.

In advance of the deadline, Allen re-filed his complaint with examples of the alleged infringement, according to MacNN reports. The updated filing accuses Apple of infringing on Interval's patents with its iTunes Store album purchasing view. Hundreds of millions of dollars could be at stake in this lawsuit. Many experts view the suit as a 'last major gamble', according to the report.

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Approving the Google Book Settlement (GBS) and giving the company a monopoly would 'make it a dangerous threat to competitors', according to an article recently published in the Financial Times. The Open Book Alliance (OBA) has stated that it concurs with the views expressed in the article. The Financial Times write-up seeks to describe the ambitions of the Google Books project and the danger posed by GBS.

The OBA notes that while Google talks about its voracious scanning - 15 million books at last count - in the frame of its stated corporate mission to organise the world's information, the fact is that, in practice, the company is monetising the world's information. It further says that 98 percent of Google's revenues come from advertising, and more specifically, directed advertising targeted at Google users based on information that the search engine collects about them.

On a separate, but related, matter, the New York Times editorialised on Google's proposed acquisition of ITA Software (a provider of air travel search software), arguing that 'Google cannot abuse its dominance in search to shut out the competition'. These concerns are seen to be equally applicable to the GBS. A Google monopoly, whether over books or over travel, and whether acquired by an abuse of the class action process or by purchasing another company, is bad for competition and bad for consumers, according to OBA.

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Internet search services provider Google has reportedly missed the deadline set by the Connecticut Attorney General's Office for turning over data that its Street View cars improperly collected from unsecured Connecticut personal and business wireless computer networks. The attorney general's office is now considering legal action against Google. The internet company failed to meet the December 17 deadline to turn over personal data it inadvertently collected from wireless networks.

Last week, the attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, issued the demand, in cooperation with the Department of Consumer Protection (DCP), in the form of a civil investigative demand - equivalent to a subpoena.

Google had initially claimed that the data was fragmented, but has since acknowledged that entire emails and other information may have been improperly captured. The company has called the improper data collection an accident. The company has allowed Canadian and other regulatory authorities to review similar data, but refused to provide Blumenthal's office access to the same. According to Blumenthal, reviewing this information is vital because Google's story changed - first claiming only fragments were collected, then acknowledging entire emails.

Google has said that it does not believe it broke US law. The matter has, however, been a bigger problem for the company outside the US. While it is facing probes in countries such as France, Germany and South Korea, UK authorities cleared Google of collecting 'meaningful personal details' during the company's Street View wireless data breach, earlier this year.

Earlier last month, Google signed a commitment to improve data handling to ensure breaches like the collection of WiFi payload data by Google Street View vehicles do not occur again. The undertaking commits the company to putting into place improved training measures on security awareness and data protection issues for all employees. The company has also said it will require its engineers to maintain a privacy design document for every new project before it is launched.

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The US' Department of Commerce has issued a report detailing initial policy recommendations aimed at promoting consumer privacy online while ensuring the Internet remains a platform that spurs innovation, job creation and economic growth. The report outlines a framework to increase protection of consumers' commercial data and support innovation and evolving technology. The Department is seeking additional public comment on the plan to further the policy discussion and ensure the framework benefits all stakeholders in the Internet economy.

The report, based on public input and discussion, recognises the growing economic and social importance of preserving consumer trust in the Internet. Global online transactions are currently estimated at $10 trillion annually. The report notes that the nation's privacy framework must evolve to keep pace with changes in technology, online services and Internet usage. To keep the digital economy growing, consumers need more transparency and control when it comes to the use and protection of their personal information, and innovators need greater certainty in order to meet consumer privacy expectations and the array of regulatory requirements they face around the world.

The report recommends considering a clear set of principles concerning how online companies collect and use personal information for commercial purposes. These principles would be recognised by the US government and serve as a foundation for online consumer data privacy. They would build on existing Fair Information Practice Principles (FIPPs) that are widely accepted among privacy experts as core obligations.

Further, the report recommends the adoption of baseline FIPPs, akin to a 'Privacy Bill of Rights'. This is expected to prompt companies to be more transparent about their use of consumer information; provide greater detail about why data is collected and how it is used; put clearer limits on the use of data; and increase their use of audits and other ways to bolster accountability. Other key recommendations include developing enforceable privacy codes of conduct in specific sectors with stakeholders; encouraging global interoperability to spur innovation and trade; considering how to harmonise disparate security breach notification rules; and reviewing the electronic communications privacy act for the cloud computing environment.

The Commerce Department will seek public comment and publish questions from the report in a Federal Register notice shortly . The Department's Internet Policy Task Force will also continue to work with others in government to engage the domestic and global privacy community, and will consider publishing a refined set of policy recommendations in the future.

The report is available for download at http://www.commerce.gov/node/12471.

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Digitally savvy academics are reportedly excited as well as anxious about Google's plan to digitise tens of millions of books and create an online library and bookstore, according to the New York Times series Humanities 2.0. While the proposal remains in legal limbo as the result of a class action lawsuit, the debate continues.

In 2009, New York Law School organised a conference on the Google settlement. The school's law journal has now dedicated its latest issue to the discussions about access, competition and copyright that followed. The issue contains articles that celebrate or criticise Google and its objectives.

One of the more provocative articles in the collection is by Daniel Reetz, who founded a network of volunteers who create devices that allow them to scan in books themselves. In his essay, Reetz expresses concern about the political implications of a settlement that imposes restrictions on content. According to him, leaving the future of books in the hands of a few corporate interests is irresponsible.

According to media reports, Reetz built his own book scanner from cheap consumer cameras and some basic parts. He is a strong defender of book digitisation, arguing that scanning should be a personal technology.

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Attorney General from Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, has demanded that Google provide access to data that its Street View cars improperly collected from unsecured Connecticut personal and business wireless computer networks. Blumenthal issued the demand, in cooperation with the Department of Consumer Protection (DCP), in the form of a civil investigative demand - equivalent to a subpoena.

Google had initially claimed that the data was fragmented, but has since acknowledged that entire emails and other information may have been improperly captured. The company has called the improper data collection an accident.

Google has allowed Canadian and other regulatory authorities to review similar data, but refused to provide Blumenthal's office the same access. According to Blumenthal, reviewing this information is vital because Google's story changed - first claiming only fragments were collected, then acknowledging entire emails.

Google collected the data in 2008 while its cars trolled Connecticut streets taking photographs for its Street View service. Google has until December 17 to provide access to the information.

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More than 100 publishers and writers are set to sue China's online search engine firm Baidu for copyright violation of their work, it has been reported. Earlier last month, more than 20 writers jointly issued a statement criticising Baidu. They have now decided to sue the search giant and are also asking Baidu to delete their work, compensate them, and close the online library, wenku.baidu.com.

Several publishers, including Shanda Corporation and Dangdang.com, previously filed a lawsuit against Baidu. The publishers had then asked it to delete all the books that violate their copyright.

The China Written Works Copyright Society (CWWCS) later issued a statement supporting the publishers seeking to sue Baidu. CWWCS further called for more publishers and writers to protect their own rights. According to the Society, Baidu offered download services on many works of literature, which violates the rights of the writers and has a negative impact on the Internet environment.

A public relations representative for Baidu has clarified that the company's online library is a platform for netizens to share documents or articles. All the articles or files therein are uploaded by the netizens and, therefore, Baidu does not infringe on the rights of the publishers and writers. The representative also said that after it received requests from the publishers and writers, it deleted the material concerned but, since the platform is open, some netizens were able to upload the works again.

According to Wang Bin, secretary general of the Copyright Union of the Internet Society of China, the country's Copyright Law and Intellectual Property Law do not give any legal definition or explanation of online copyright. This means that each case is judged according to the specific situation.

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iCopyright, a US-based provider of intelligent copyright systems for digital content, has reportedly filed a lawsuit against news agency Associated Press (AP) for breach of contract and unfair competition.

In a complaint filed in November in federal district court in New York, iCopyright has alleged that AP failed to meet its promise to promote iCopyright's service. Additionally, it has charged AP of developing its own licensing service, or 'news registry' while it 'had access to and knowledge of iCopyright's confidential information'. The lawsuit, signed by iCopyright's lawyers and verified by the company's CEO Andrew Elston, outlines that the company seeks to recover damages.

AP has termed the lawsuit 'meritless' in a statement. In its court papers, the news organisation stated that it terminated its contract with iCopyright because the latter had not paid it an agreed-upon minimum $15,000 per month since March. Further, it said that its news registry was developed independently of iCopyright.

AP had signed a deal with iCopyright in 2008 to create a web-based licencing system for its content. At that time it said that AP-hosted stories would feature links which would direct users to the iCopyright service at the top and bottom of the articles. These links were expected to give AP content users the option to e-mail content, request copies, purchase photos or publish to their own websites.

US District Court Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald has denied iCopyright's request for an emergency restraining order. However, she will still consider whether to issue an injunction in the next several weeks.

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Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, has announced the acquisition of Widevine Technologies, Inc., in a bid to boost its online video services. Widevine provides media solutions for the delivery of digital entertainment to any device. Service providers use its multiplatform DRM and video optimisation solutions for securing high quality video and audio.

The Widevine team has reportedly worked to provide a better video delivery experience for businesses of all kinds. By forging partnerships across the entire ecosystem, the company has sought to make on-demand services more efficient and secure for media companies, and ultimately more available and convenient for users.

With this acquisition, Google plans to build upon Widevine's technology to enhance the products of both companies. The Widevine team will now become part of Google.

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The Regional Court of Hamburg in Germany recently upheld the imposition of fines of over €150,000 against Rapidshare and its principals. The court had imposed the fines for violating the injunction it had issued earlier this year.

The injunction was obtained in February 2010 by Bedford, Freeman and Worth Publishing Group (a subsidiary of Macmillan), Cengage Learning, Elsevier, John Wiley, McGraw-Hill Companies, and Pearson Education. It prohibits Rapidshare from allowing 148 of those publishers' copyright-protected works to be made publicly available in digital form on Rapidshare.com. After obtaining the injunction, the publishers discovered that most of the injunction-protected works continued to be available on Rapidshare.com. As a result, they moved the court to impose the fines.

In upholding the fines, the German court made it clear that Rapidshare must implement effective measures to prevent illegal file sharing of the 148 works. In its initial ruling issuing the injunction, the court had ruled that Rapidshare was required to monitor its site to ensure that the publishers' copyrighted content was not uploaded and that users could not gain unauthorised access to the material.

The court has now concluded that Rapidshare failed to take reasonable examination and control measures. These measures include the utilisation of a word filter, which checks the file name during the uploading of files to the servers of [Rapidshare] with regard to whether the author, the title, the ISBN number of the publisher may be contained in this name. Rapidshare is also required to search the relevant popular external link libraries for links to files with the works in dispute.

According to the publishers, the court's decision will help level the playing field so as to foster true innovation - creative original innovation - by prohibiting business models that are based on copyright theft. The publishers contend that businesses like Rapidshare, which have succeeded by offering a "free-for-all" of pirated works, will now be forced to develop truly innovative ways to attract users.

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A team of researchers in Waterford Institute of Technology's TSSG (Telecommunications Software and Systems Group) were recently appointed as lead co-ordinators of ENDORSE, a €3.7 million EU-wide research project to create technical and legal framework for data management, to prevent the accidental or unauthorised use of sensitive personal information.

Privacy and data protection are seen to be major concerns for organisations, law makers, consumer and human rights groups, government and data subjects, individuals who are the subject of personal data. The Data Protection Commissioner's 2009 report showed a 47% increase in security breaches with 119 reported incidents. Two high profile incidents involved sensitive client details held by Bord Gáis and the Health Service Executive.

The ENDORSE project brings together legal experts, computer science partners and software firms from Ireland, the UK, the Netherlands, Spain, Austria and Italy. The aim of the project is to provide confidence in data protection. To do this, infrastructural components will be developed to help organisations ensure their personal data management policies and practices comply with national implementations of the EU Data Protection Directive.

ENDORSE will also provide organisations with tools to enable them to show individuals how their personal data is being used, by whom and for what purpose. Automating users' access to this information is expected to result in significant savings for organisations currently dealing with these requests on an individual basis.

Boosting TSSG's ongoing work in ICT security, this two and a half year project involves collaboration with partners from the public and private sector including the DL Legal, Soluta.Net, University of Zaragoza, Tilburg University, Salzburg University of Applied Sciences, SEECOMMS (Research ) Limited, CREATE-NET, Europ Assistand Italia.

TSSG researchers are among Ireland's leading telecommunications and software engineering experts whose work sees them partner with academic and global industry leaders. The group conducts research in telecommunications network management security and mobile services and is recognised as one of the top ten European institutes driving 'Future Internet' research.

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Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, has announced that it will implement new anti-piracy measures over the next several months.

Under the latest plan of action, the company will act on reliable copyright takedown requests within 24 hours. It will build tools to improve the submission process to make it easier for rightsholders to submit DMCA takedown requests for Google products (starting with Blogger and web search). For copyright owners who use the tools responsibly, the average response time will be reduced to 24 hours or less. Also, it will seek to improve its 'counter-notice' tools for those who believe their content was wrongly removed and enable public searching of takedown requests.

Google has also announced plans to improve its AdSense anti-piracy review. According to the company, it has always prohibited the use of AdSense programme on web pages that provide infringing materials. Building on its existing DMCA takedown procedures, Google will be working with rightsholders to identify and, when appropriate, expel violators from the AdSense programme.

Additionally, Google will prevent terms that are closely associated with piracy from appearing in Autocomplete. Further, it will experiment to make authorised preview content more readily accessible in search results.

These changes are expected to build on the company's efforts to give rightsholders choice and control over the use of their content.

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Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, has signed a commitment to improve data handling to ensure breaches like the collection of WiFi payload data by Google Street View vehicles do not occur again.

Senior Vice President of Google, Alan Eustace, has signed an undertaking on behalf of Google Inc. which commits the company to putting into place improved training measures on security awareness and data protection issues for all employees. The company has also said it will require its engineers to maintain a privacy design document for every new project before it is launched. The payload data that Google inadvertently collected in the UK will also be deleted.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) will conduct a full audit of Google's internal privacy structure, privacy training programmes and its system of privacy reviews for new products. The audit will take place within nine months of the undertaking being signed.

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Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, has announced an agreement with French publisher Hachette Livre to scan thousands of out-of-print French books for Google's online library.

The two companies said in a statement they had settled previous disagreements and signed a memorandum of understanding that defines the terms for Google to scan Hachette Livre's French language books. Google's world book-scanning project has met resistance in France and other countries from critics who warn it undermines authors and book sellers and who have accused Google of trying to grab cultural heritage.

The agreement gives Hachette control over which books it allows Google to scan. The works will then be sold in electronic format or printed on demand. The deal is expected to benefit both authors and readers, and booksellers would profit from print-on-demand sales. Hachette will share copies of the scanned books with France's National Library and other public bodies.

Google has already signed deals to scan national library holdings in Italy, the Netherlands and Austria. The company's book-scanning operations have met strong legal challenges in the US and a number of French publishers have sued or threatened to sue Google for alleged unauthorised scanning.

According to Google and Hachette executives the US and French disputes were not affected by the deal.

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The European Union is planning an overhaul of its data protection law which applies in all EU countries. High on its list of priorities is an intention to give consumers more control over how personal information is collected and used.

The new data protection strategy aims to ensure that people are aware of what happens to the information they share with companies, public authorities and social networking sites. Holders of personal information, such as internet service providers or search engines, would have to reveal who is collecting data and for what purpose.

The strategy will introduce the concept of the 'right to be forgotten' - to ask for data to be completely removed once it has served its original purpose.

Currently, only telecommunications companies must inform consumers if their personal details are unlawfully accessed. The strategy would now extend that requirement to other sectors, such as the financial industry. Companies would only be able to send personal information outside the EU if the recipient was in a country offering a similar level of data protection.

The strategy also aims to cement a common approach across the EU. Because countries do not apply current rules consistently, it's not clear what law apply in what circumstances. That can be an obstacle to doing business when it holds up the legitimate flow of information. Under the revised law, multinational companies would only have to deal with one set of rules.

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Construction information provider Reed Construction Data (RCD), US, a division of Reed Business Information, has announced that McGraw-Hill Construction Dodge (MHC), a unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. has admitted to some of the most serious allegations made in RCD's 2009 federal lawsuit. In the lawsuit, RCD alleged that Dodge unlawfully misappropriated RCD's confidential and trade secret information and used that information in an attempt to gain a competitive advantage.

The lawsuit, filed Oct. 8, 2009, in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, charged that Dodge since 2002 used a series of fake companies to pose as RCD customers and gain unlawful access to RCD's confidential construction project information database.

In documents filed in federal court on Oct. 22, 2010, McGraw-Hill admitted that it paid third parties to access RCD confidential and trade secret information, data reserved for RCD's paying clients. McGraw-Hill also admitted that it used this access to share RCD's confidential information with its sales force. RCD's lawsuit alleges that MHC's ultimate goal in conducting these activities was to gain an unfair advantage in the marketplace.

The RCD suit seeks an unspecified amount in lost profits and punitive damages, trial by jury, and injunctive relief as a result of McGraw-Hill's misuse of RCD's proprietary construction project information.

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Researchers at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech and collaborators have reportedly shown that a computer-based text-searching tool is capable of unearthing questionable publication practices from thousands of full-text papers in biomedical literature. The first step in the process is to find out what is restated before zeroing in on who may have crossed an ethically unacceptable threshold. The findings, published in PLoS ONE, are seen to offer hope for curbing unethical scientific publication practice, a growing problem throughout the world.

Although abstract search is an effective approach to detect potential plagiarism, full text analysis is needed to uncover all potential duplicate citations in the scientific literature. The researchers examined 72,011 full-text articles using the eTBLAST computer programme, which is reportedly only the tip of the iceberg for the number of published biomedical articles in the archives.

The current study revealed that the introduction section tended to be copied the most in similar citations. Also, review articles were confirmed as being particularly prone to repetition. The researchers went on to explain that the re-use of text in certain sections, such as the methods section of papers, where authors provide details on how the work was done, is not a bad thing because it is important to use the accepted and most consistent techniques.

The work was supported by the Hudson Foundation and the National Institutes of Health/National Library of Medicine. The paper is the 100th article funded by the US Department of Health & Human Services Office of Research Integrity.

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Internet search services provider Google Inc, US, contravened Canadian privacy law when it inappropriately collected personal information from unsecured wireless networks in neighbourhoods across the country, an investigation has found. The Privacy Commissioner's investigation also concluded that the incident was the result of an engineer's careless error as well as a lack of controls to ensure that necessary procedures to protect privacy were followed.

The personal information collected included complete e-mails, e-mail addresses, usernames and passwords, names and residential telephone numbers and addresses. Some of the captured information was very sensitive, such as a list that provided the names of people suffering from certain medical conditions, along with their telephone numbers and addresses. It is likely that thousands of Canadians were affected by the incident.

Technical experts from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner travelled to the company's offices in Mountain View, Calif. in order to perform an on-site examination of the data that was collected. They conducted an automated search for data that appeared to constitute personal information.

To protect privacy, the experts manually examined only a small sample of data flagged by the automated search. The Privacy Commissioner launched an investigation under the federal private-sector privacy law, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, or PIPEDA, after Google revealed that its cars had inadvertently collected data transmitted over wireless networks installed in homes and businesses across Canada and around the world over a period of several years. The networks were not password protected or encrypted.

In light of the investigation, Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, recommended that Google ensure it has a governance model in place to comply with privacy laws. The model should include controls to ensure that necessary procedures to protect privacy are duly followed before products are launched.

The Commissioner has also recommended that Google enhance privacy training to foster compliance amongst all employees. As well, she called on Google to designate an individual or individuals responsible for privacy issues and for complying with the organisation's privacy obligations - a requirement under Canadian privacy law.

It was also recommended that Google delete the Canadian payload data it collected, to the extent that the company does not have any outstanding obligations under Canadian and American laws preventing it from doing so, such as preserving evidence related to legal proceedings. If the Canadian payload data cannot immediately be deleted, it needs to be secured and access to it must be restricted. The Privacy Commissioner will consider the matter resolved upon receiving, by February 1, 2011, confirmation from Google that it has implemented the recommendations.

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada is mandated by Parliament to act as an ombudsman, advocate and guardian of privacy and the protection of personal information rights of Canadians.

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Scientists at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute have retracted a paper published in the journal Nature in January 2010. This follows the lead author, Amy Wagers, obtaining information that 'undermined' her confidence in the data. Wagers is a researcher at the Harvard-affiliated Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston.

The Nature paper, which examined the role of blood stem cells in the aging process, was retracted by Wagers and two of her co-authors. The retraction notice was posted by the journal on its website. Shane Mayack, one of the authors on the paper, did not sign the retraction and maintains that the results are still valid. The Nature paper listed Mayack as the first author and Wagers as the last. According to scientific publishing convention, the first-named author is typically the primary researcher and the last is the supervising senior scientist.

In a related announcement, another journal, Blood, posted a 'notice of concern' on its website about a 2008 paper by Wagers and Mayack. Wagers had then notified the journal about 'serious concerns with some of the reported data'.

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The International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) has expressed serious concern about Canada's Copyright Modernization Act (Bill C-32). STM says that if enacted, the provisions of the bill would seriously prejudice STM publishing, Canadian publishers, authors and rightsholders generally. Moreover, the provisions, if enacted, would violate Canada's international copyright obligations.

STM has further stated that the bill is marred by 'over-broad exceptions' and 'toothless provisions' against online piracy. In its submission, the STM notes that Bill C-32 will - through the introduction of too broad or general exceptions or limitations - erode or cause to fall away distinct markets pertaining to the educational community. In this process Bill C-32 will also substantially alter existing licensing options in the market for STM materials and interfere with the existing normal exploitation of STM materials.

Further, STM estimates that around $40 million may be at stake in Canada in the immediate future. The changes will also impact the publishing industry outside Canada since they will allow copies of copyright-protected works to circulate widely through interlibrary loans, e-learning or commercial online distributors without appropriate compensation to rightsholders. These changes may accordingly act as a disincentive for authors to create works, for publishers to publish them for the educational community and be to the detriment of Canadian users.

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The Czech data protection authority has reportedly banned Google from collecting data for its Street View service. According to a statement issued by the Czech data protection office, Google was invading privacy by using high-level cameras capable of taking shots that go beyond the extent of ordinary sight from a street.

The Czech Office for Personal Data Protection said that it has received dozens of complaints about photographs of the interiors of homes and people engaged in private activities as well as invasive shots of private property beyond fences. Google has also been accused of failing to appoint a local representative to deal with personal data, as required by European law.

Google, which uses specially equipped vehicles to take 'street-view' pictures of municipalities worldwide, has appealed the decision. The data office has said that it would deal with the appeal.

In Germany, protests forced Google to launch a campaign giving citizens concerned about safety or privacy eight weeks to tell the company to pixel out pictures of their homes or businesses before they are published.

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Internet search services provider Google Inc, US, has launched an interactive online Transparency Report with tools that allow people to see where governments are demanding removal of content and where Google services are being blocked. According to Google, this kind of transparency can be a deterrent to censorship.

Like all companies, Google's services occasionally experience traffic disruptions. The new traffic tracking tool will help the company and others track whether these interruptions are related to mechanical outages or are government-induced. Each traffic graph shows historic traffic patterns for a given country and service. Graphs are updated as data is collected, then normalised and scaled in units of 0 to 100.

The new tool, which is global and includes China, will replace the Mainland China service availability chart, which showed product access for China alone. By showing outages, the traffic graphs visualise disruptions in the free flow of information.

Earlier, in April 2010, Google created a website that shows the number of government inquiries for information about users and requests for Google to take down or censor content. The company is now updating this interactive Government Requests map with data from the first six months of 2010. It has also updated its analysis of the trends seen across the data over the past six months. The new data for 2010 now includes the number of individual items asked to be removed, per country.

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The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) - along with the American Library Association (ALA), the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), the International Documentary Association (IDA) and the WGBH Educational Foundation - has joined an amicus brief prepared in the US by Anthony Falzone at the Stanford Fair Use Project. The parties are asking for the full Fourth Circuit to rehear the case of Bouchat v. Ravens and reconsider the panel's flawed fair use reasoning.

The case centers around a logo used from 1996 to 1998 by the football team Baltimore Ravens, which was later determined to infringe Frederick E. Bouchat's copyrights. Bouchat sued and won, and the team has used a new logo since 1999. Bouchat also sued the Ravens and the National Football League (NFL) and asked the court for the right to suppress every depiction of his logo, including every depiction of the Baltimore Ravens in uniforms bearing the logo from 1996 to 1998. The district court denied his request, saying these historical depictions were fair use. On appeal, however, a panel of the Fourth Circuit reversed the district court.

Falzone's amicus brief seeks to remind the court that there is overwhelming precedent to support the Ravens' claim of fair use. The brief makes several points, but perhaps the most important point is seen to be that for-profit use is not fatal to a fair use claim.

The Supreme Court has said that fair use is an essential First Amendment protection because it ensures that the copyright monopoly is not allowed to become a limitation on vital freedoms of expression. If courts decline to apply fair use to protect something as fundamental as the right to document historical facts, they upset the constitutional balance in copyright law. The 'exclusive rights' of authors and inventors were never meant to give them a licence to censor history, it was observed.

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The rise in commercialisation of science is impeding access to key scientific knowledge and slowing down the progress of science, researchers on bmj.com have claimed. Varuni de Silva and Raveen Hanwella from the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka contend that copyrighting or patenting medical scales, tests, techniques and genetic material, curbs the benefits that the public can gain from scientific discovery.

For instance, they point out, that many commonly used rating scales are copyrighted and researchers need to pay for their use. Extreme commercialisation of science can also lead to patents on medical procedures and techniques, the authors argue. However, the American Medical Association recently concluded that it is unethical for physicians to seek, secure or enforce patents on medical procedures.

The scientific community is reacting to the increasing commercialisation of science, they add. For instance, all genome sequences generated by the human genome project have been deposited into a public database freely accessible by anyone. Organisations such as the US’ National Institute of Health and the UK's Wellcome Trust insist on open access to publication resulting from research funded by them.

According to the Lankan researchers, the fundamental philosophy of Western science is sharing knowledge. While patenting is a useful tool for protecting investments in industry, we need to rethink its role in science, they point out. They conclude that although those who consider science as a commodity are willing to invest in research and development, much medical research is still carried out by non-profit organisations using public money. It is only right that such knowledge is freely shared. This is possible because academic scientists still consider the prestige of discovery more important than monetary reward.

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Skyhook Wireless, Inc., a US-based provider of data intelligence, has reportedly filed a lawsuit against Internet search services provider, Google, Inc., US, for patent infringement. Skyhook has accused Google of infringing on patents related to wi-fi use in determining a cell phone's location, and for business interference for using that technology.

According to the suit, filed in Massachusetts state court, Google interfered with contracts Skyhook had reached with phone makers including Motorola. In a separate complaint filed in the federal court in Boston, Skyhook has alleged that Google violated four of its patents related to ways to establish the precise location of a smartphone.

In April this year, Google and Skyhook signed a deal for Google's Android operating system to use software made by Skyhook to pinpoint users for location-based apps on the Droid line of phones made by Motorola. The business interference suit reportedly states: 'On information and belief, shortly thereafter, Andy Rubin (Google's Vice President of Engineering overseeing development of Android) called Sanjay Jha (Co-Chief Executive Officer of Motorola and Chief Executive Officer of Motorola's Mobile Devices business) multiple times to impose a "stop ship" order on Motorola preventing Motorola from shipping Android wireless devices featuring Skyhook's XPS client software'.

Skyhook alleges that Google threatened to retract the rights of phone makers to deploy its Android operating system on devices that contained Skyhook's software. It is seeking damages in the tens of millions of dollars. In the patent case, the company is seeking unspecified damages and an order that would prevent further use of its inventions.

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The US' House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy is set to explore growing concerns about anti-competitive and monopolistic practices taking place online. The Open Book Alliance (OBA) applauds the action and urges the subcommittee to use the hearing to continue its examination of the threat to online competition presented by the proposed Google Book Settlement and its role in usurping the rights of authors, academic researchers, libraries and independent publishers.

The hearing, titled 'Competition in the Evolving Digital Marketplace', is seen as an opportunity for members to make inquiries on the antitrust implications of the proposed settlement. This is not the first time the committee has explored the Google Book Settlement or heard concerns from regulators and consumer advocates about anti-competitive practices from Google.

During a prior House Judiciary Committee hearing on the settlement in September 2009, the US Register of Copyrights, Mary Beth Peters, testified that the Google Book Settlement 'inappropriately creates something similar to a compulsory license for works, unfairly alters the property interests of millions of rights-holders of out-of-print works without any Congressional oversight and has the capacity to create diplomatic stress for the United States'.

The US Justice Department has reportedly stated that it believes the Google Book Settlement would enable broad dangers for online competition. In a February 2010 court filing, the Antitrust Division concluded that 'Google's exclusive access to millions and millions of books may well benefit Google's existing online search business. Google already holds a relatively dominant market share in that market. That dominance may be further entrenched by its exclusive access to content through the [proposed settlement]. Content that can be discovered by only one search engine offers that search engine at least some protection from competition. This outcome has not been achieved by a technological advance in search or by operation of normal market forces; rather, it is the direct product of scanning millions of books without the copyright holders' consent and then using Rule 23 to achieve results not otherwise obtainable in the market'.

The OBA agrees with the Department of Justice that the proposed Google Book Settlement could have sweeping, negative repercussions for online competition. The latest hearing is expected to give careful scrutiny to the important copyright and competition policy issues the proposed settlement raises and consider legislative or regulatory measures that could address the fundamental unfairness of making public policy and re-crafting copyright law through litigation.

The OBA aims to counter Google, the Association of American Publishers and the Authors' Guild's alleged scheme to monopolise the access, distribution and pricing of the largest digital database of books in the world. To this end, it seeks to promote fair and flexible solutions aimed at achieving a robust and open information environment.

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Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, has announced that the Czech Republic's data protection authority has refused to allow further picture collection for Google's Street View map service.

The data office, which already rejected a similar request from Google in December 2009, said it would comment on the matter at a press conference on September 22.

The office launched administrative proceedings against Google in April as the latter's specially equipped vehicles taking pictures of Prague streets also collected personal information sent via unsecured wireless networks.

In neighbouring Germany, protests forced Google to launch a campaign giving citizens concerned about safety or privacy eight weeks to tell the company to pixel out pictures of their homes or businesses before they are published.

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New Zealand officials have cleared internet search services provider Google of any criminal charges, after it collected data from wireless networks for its 'Street View' mapping service. Earlier in June, the New Zealand Privacy Commissioner called in the police after Google admitted that its cars taking photographs of cities in over 30 countries had inadvertently gathered personal data sent over unsecured wifi systems.

Privacy regulators in Australia, Europe, the US and Canada also launched investigations into data the web giant's camera-equipped cars collected while taking photos of streets and houses.

New Zealand police said Google's actions did not constitute a criminal offence and they had referred the matter back to the Privacy Commissioner. However, the NZ police cyber crime centre has said that the case underlined the need for web users to put in place security measures when using wireless networks.

Concerns in the case centre on Google's collection of so-called 'payload data', unencrypted information sent on wireless networks that are not protected by passwords which can contain personal information, including the content of e-mails. Google said in July that its 'Street View' cars would resume operations in some countries but collect only photos and 3D imagery, not wifi data.

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Harvard University cognitive scientist Marc Hauser may have fabricated data in a 2002 publication, according to Gerry Altmann, editor of the journal Cognition. Altmann posted a statement on his blog saying that his review of information provided to him by Harvard had convinced him that fabrication was the most plausible explanation for data in a 2002 Cognition paper. The journal has already announced plans to retract the paper.

Hauser's research explores the evolutionary roots of human cognitive abilities. According to a report published in Boston Globe, the paper in question tested the ability of cotton-top tamarins to distinguish between two 'grammars', or patterns of syllables. Each monkey was trained on one grammar, and during the test was supposed to be exposed to sequences from two different ones. The findings fit with a broader theme in Hauser's work: that the cognitive gap between humans and monkeys is not as great as widely supposed.

According to Altmann, the Harvard investigators reviewed videotapes of the experiments, and found no evidence that a key experimental condition reported in the paper had ever been run.

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A judge in Spain has reportedly opened an investigation into whether internet search services provider Google illegally collected data from unsecured wireless networks while gathering photographs for Google's photo-mapping service Street View.

According to a New York Times report, a representative from Google has been ordered to appear before the judge, Raquel Fernandino, in early October over a lawsuit filed by a Spanish association of Internet users. While the summons was issued last month, it was made public only this week.

Street View has caused regulatory and legal problems for Google in other European countries like Switzerland and Germany which follow strict privacy laws. Earlier in May, a judge in Hamburg opened a criminal investigation of Google over its collection of data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks in Germany. Google had then said that the collection of data was accidental and apologised for what it called a programming error.

A spokeswoman for Google has said that the company will cooperate fully with the judge and other Spanish authorities to resolve the privacy concerns.

Street View was introduced in Spain three years ago, and according to Google, it had proved very popular. Plans to expand the coverage in Spain have been delayed pending an outcome in the data collection dispute.

Apedanica, the Spanish association of Internet users, contends that Google violated an article in Spain's criminal code that prohibits the unauthorised interception and collection of such communications data. The judge's investigation is reportedly the most serious threat so far in Spain for Google and its mapping service.

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Germany may reportedly introduce legislation to limit the activity of internet search services provider Google Inc.'s street mapping service. The Street View service offers detailed pictures of neighborhoods captured by Google cameras.

Earlier this week, Google had announced plans to introduce the service in 20 of the country's biggest cities by the end of 2010. Citing an unidentified Interior Ministry spokesman, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Ministry was reacting to public concern by considering modifications to existing privacy rules, which may need legislation.

Google has said that it was concerned new rules may inhibit companies from building map products.

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Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, plans to launch its Street View mapping service for 20 German cities by 2010-end, media reports have quoted the company as saying. German officials have reportedly flayed Street View, which offers detailed pictures of neighborhoods captured by Google cameras. Due to their insistence, the company will blur the faces of individuals and licence plates. Also, people may opt to have images of their homes removed from the database.

The cities will include Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Cologne.

The announcement, seen to have come on short notice in the middle of the summer vacation, has drawn the attention of privacy watchdogs. They point to the fact that residents can only ask for their house to be removed for a four-week period. Also, the fact that Google has refused to set up a hot line to answer questions has raised concerns. The privacy groups have urged Google be more transparent on how it will handle the data of those who wish to opt out of the mapping programme.

German Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner has reportedly said Google must accept faxes and written letters from those without Internet access. According to him, thousands have already downloaded a standard objection letter available on the ministry's website.

Google claims to be doing more than what is legally required to protect privacy. The company's Street View has led to controversies in various countries such as Germany and South Korea. There is fear that people may be filmed without their consent at places where they did not wish to be seen.

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Global library cooperative Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC), US, has released a statement on a lawsuit filed by cataloging services provider SkyRiver Technology Solutions, US. Larry Alford, Chair, OCLC Board of Trustees, and Jay Jordan, OCLC President and CEO, released the statement which says the lawsuit is 'without merit' and a 'regrettable action'.

On July 29, SkyRiver and Innovative Interfaces, Inc. filed a suit against OCLC, alleging anticompetitive practices. OCLC believes that the lawsuit is without merit, and plans to vigorously defend the policies and practices of the cooperative.

OCLC's General Counsel, working with trial counsel, will respond to the legal action following procedures and timetables dictated by the court. The process is expected to take months or even years.

In the meantime, OCLC has assured its membership and all 72,000 libraries that the allegations will not divert the cooperative from its current plans and activities. These include maintaining and enhancing existing services, pursuing an ambitious agenda in library research and advocacy, and introducing new web-scale (cloud) services.

OCLC's current strategy is claimed to represent a collective effort by librarians around the world. It has been developed through ongoing dialogue and consultation with the Board of Trustees, Global Council, and Regional Councils in the Americas, Asia Pacific, and Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to the cooperative.

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The UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has cleared internet search services provider Google Inc. of collecting 'meaningful personal details' during the company's Street View wireless data breach, earlier this year.

The ICO recently visited Google's premises to assess samples of the 'pay-load' data it inadvertently collected. While Google considered it unlikely that it had collected anything other than fragments of content, the data-protection agency wanted to make its own judgement as to the likelihood that significant personal data had been retained and, if so, the extent of any intrusion.

The ICO concluded that the information collected by Google's cars did not include meaningful personal details that could be linked to an identifiable person. The ICO further noted that there is also no evidence as yet that the data captured by Google has caused or could cause any individual detriment.

In May 2010, Google acknowledged that its Street View vehicles had inadvertently collected data over public Wi-Fi networks while marking the location of the Wi-Fi networks and taking pictures for its online mapping service. The company had then said that while it was a mistake to collect personal data, it does not believe it has broken any laws. Google continues to work with relevant authorities to answer their questions and concerns. The British report likely will not affect the ongoing investigations in the US, Germany, France and other countries.

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The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) has joined a coalition of public interest and technology groups in an amicus curie or 'friend of the court' brief written by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asking the Ninth Circuit to reject the arguments made by Universal Music Group (UMG) and affirm the lower court's decision in UMG v. Veoh. The case involves the legal 'safe harbor' for online service providers hosting content on the Web. The safe harbor protects online service providers from damages liability if a third party using the online service infringes copyright.

In its original decision, the district court found that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) protected Veoh, a Web-hosting service, against infringement claims brought by UMG. Though Veoh took down allegedly infringing material whenever it received a DMCA-compliant notice, UMG appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit. UMG advanced the same narrow interpretation of the DMCA argued by Viacom (and rejected by the court) in its litigation against YouTube. In particular, UMG argued that once a Web-host has general awareness that there might be infringing material on the website, the host loses its DMCA safe harbor.

The DMCA established a vital safe harbor for online service providers such as YouTube, Amazon, e-Bay, and other services, as well as non-commercial entities such as universities who provide Internet services to the university community. Interested parties may view the amicus brief online at http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/amicus_umg_veoh_072310.pdf.

The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) consists of three major library associations-the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, and the Association of College and Research Libraries. These three associations collectively represent over 300,000 information professionals and thousands of libraries of all kinds throughout the United States and Canada.

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The United States Copyright Office reportedly completed its statutorily required review of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) recently. Three major exemptions included in the ruling were a renewal on the exemption for cell-phone unlocking, a new exemption for the jail-breaking of smart phones technology, and the use of visual media clips for transformative, non-commercial works. The ruling has reportedly resulted in a flood of optimism from a range of open access advocates.

The Copyright Office ruling on the DMCA is held every third year, and was released on July 26, 2010. The ruling is available online at http://www.copyright.gov/1201.

The campaign for the first of the two exemptions was spearheaded by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which hailed the ruling. "Unlocking" is when a cellphone owner reworks the phone so that it can run on alternative provider networks than the one through which it was activated. "Jailbreaking" is the modification of software on smart phones so as to be interoperable with other operating systems. EFF and the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) joined together to gain the final exemption, useful in the world of "vidding" or using short clips from films, television and other media sources in order to create a new work that comments upon, criticises or otherwise engages with the old one.

These exemptions will have to undergo new scrutiny in order to be renewed through the same process in three years. For the moment, the vidding exemption is seen to open up new ground for professionals working on presentations, artists and educators to grapple with visual media while being certain they are covered by Fair Use Doctrine, according to sources.

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The European Commission has reportedly stated that it does not object to Google digitising 160,000 books in the archives of the National Library of the Netherlands if these will be made available publicly. The Dutch library, Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB), recently announced an agreement with Internet search services provider Google to digitise more than 160,000 out-of-copyright (public domain) books from the library's collection.

According to EU spokesman Jonathan Todd, the EU executive welcomed the digitisation of materials from public libraries provided 'they are made available to European citizens' and meet EU copyright and competition laws.

The out-of-copyright works from the 18th and 19th centuries will be fully searchable and accessible for free via Google Books and various KB websites. These books will also be accessible via the EU's Europeana portal in the near future.

Google has similar deals with Austria's National Library as well as Italy's cultural heritage ministry. Until now, the company has made digital copies of more than 12 million books. However, all of these books are not publicly available because of a dispute over out-of-print books still protected by copyrights.

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The National Library of Netherlands, Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB), has announced an agreement with Internet search services provider Google. Under the deal, Google will digitise more than 160,000 out-of-copyright (public domain) books from the library's collection. The books will be fully searchable and accessible for free via Google Books and via the various KB websites. These books will also be accessible via the European Union's Europeana portal in the near future.

The books to be scanned constitute the majority of the library's public domain collection, and form an important addition to the corpus of public domain books that has already been digitised and made searchable in Google Books. The collection includes a wide range of historical, legal and social works published in the Netherlands during the 18th and 19th centuries and is expected to be of great interest to scholars and researchers in the Dutch-speaking world and around the globe.

Earlier this year, the KB announced plans to digitise all Dutch books, newspapers and periodicals from 1470 onwards. The agreement between the KB and Google is part of the KB's strategy to realise this ambition, and complements the library's own digitisation initiatives. The KB's agreement with Google follows on the heels of similar digitisation partnerships between Google and institutions including Harvard University, Oxford University's Bodleian Library, the Italian Ministry of Culture and the National Libraries of Italy in Rome and Florence and the Austrian National Library.

Scanning will take place over a number of years, and after digitisation, the books will be returned to the library so that they can be made available again in the reading room.

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UC Berkeley law professor Pamela Samuelson has published a paper titled 'Google Book Search and the Future of Books in Cyberspace', according to the Open Book Alliance (OBA). Samuelson is an advocate for the public interest in the Google Book Search (GBS) debate.

In the paper, she seeks to cover the landscape of the current proposed settlement debate and describe the fundamental flaws of the settlement, highlighting the 'nightmares' that the GBS poses for publishers, library and academic researchers, professional authors and readers. The paper also looks to detail the legal flaws with the deal, including its monopolistic results. It includes an analysis on how the deal fits into Google's purported larger business strategy of leveraging its market dominance in search.

Prof. Samuelson views a public guardian alternative to be a preferred approach that will protect the public interest rather than the private commercial interests of a few. The OBA supports the views of the US Department of Justice and advocates like Prof. Samuelson.

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Internet search services provider Google Inc. has announced that China has renewed its Internet licence, after the company's local venture pledged to allow its Web content to be supervised by regulators. An official with China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology confirmed that the licence was renewed for another year for Beijing Guxiang Information Technology, the operator of Google's China website.

Google received approval to operate in China after it agreed to stop rerouting users of Google.cn to its site in Hong Kong, which is not subject to China's online censorship. Search requests at Google.cn from within mainland China will now require an extra click that then takes the user to the Hong Kong site.

China's decision to allow Google to continue operations has resolved a lengthy dispute that had threatened the company's future in the country. In January 2010, Google threatened to exit the Chinese market after cyber attacks originating from the nation targeted its systems. The attacks were aimed at obtaining personal data and proprietary information belonging to human-rights activists who use the company's Gmail e-mail service.

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The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recently announced the final version of its uniform conflict-of-interest disclosure document. The five-page form queries authors submitting articles for publication about their financial ties to industry firms in the previous three years.

In a shift from the original version unveiled in October 2009, authors will not be asked about their spouse's or children's financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies. The document, which a user can fill out online, is aimed at simplifying the author-disclosure process. Many authors, after failing to share information about a financial conflict, claim confusion about what they were required to disclose. Hundreds of journals already follow the committee's uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals.

The form is available at the ICMJE website at http://www.icmje.org. The ICMJE is made up of 12 of the leading medical journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) has filed an amicus curiae brief with the Supreme Court of the US in support of petitioner Costco Wholesale Corporation in a lawsuit filed against Costco by luxury watch manufacturer Omega. The LCA comprises the American Library Association (ALA), the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL).

Omega claims Costco infringed its copyrights by importing authentic Omega watches from abroad rather than buying them from the US distributor at a higher price. LCA believes this case could diminish the legal provision that allows libraries to lend books.

The 'first-sale doctrine' is the exception to the Copyright Act that allows any purchaser of a legal copy of a book or other copyrighted work to sell or lend that copy. However, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the first-sale doctrine applied only to copies manufactured in the US. In its friend of the court brief, LCA has asked the Supreme Court to reverse the Ninth Circuit Court's decision and apply the first-sale doctrine to all copies manufactured with the lawful authorisation of the holder of a work's US copyright.

How the Supreme Court interprets the first-sale doctrine could determine the extent to which libraries can continue to lend books and other materials manufactured abroad to the public.

The LCA asserts that this case is critically important to libraries and their users because a significant portion of US library collections consist of resources that were manufactured overseas. More than 200 million books in US libraries have foreign publishers. Additionally, many books published by US publishers were actually printed in other countries, and often these books do not indicate where they were printed. If a book does not specify that it was printed in the US, a library would not know whether it could lend it without being exposed to a copyright lawsuit.

LCA believes it is critically important for the court to recognise the impact this case could have on library services to the public and to consider possible solutions. A PDF version of the amicus brief is available online at http://www.librarycopyrightalliance.org/bm~doc/lca-costco-amicus.pdf.

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The European Union's antitrust chief, Joaquin Almunia, has reportedly said that his office is continuing to investigate antitrust concerns about Google Inc. During a recent speech on digital media in London, Almunia said that the EU investigation is still at an early stage but that officials were aware of the 'importance of search to a competitive online marketplace'.

Almunia added that his office is investigating allegations of anti-competitive conduct in the search business. The antitrust chief has said that he is looking 'very carefully' at allegations that Google Inc. unjustly demotes rivals' sites in search results. A Google spokesman confirmed that the company is aware of the continuing inquiry and has been cooperating with the commission.

In February 2009, Google revealed, in a blog post, that the EU had begun investigating the company for possible anticompetitive behaviour. The EC investigation was triggered by complaints filed by eJustice.fr, a French legal search engine; Ciao, a German search site that has been acquired by Microsoft Corp; and Foundem, a UK price comparison site. However, according to Google, its search results are entirely controlled by algorithms that demote sites with little useful content for users. Low rankings matter because a higher ranking in a Google search drives higher volumes of traffic to websites.

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Documents opened as part of a lawsuit against pharmaceuticals manufacturer Wyeth Pharmaceuticals have revealed that the company used ghostwriters to prepare 40 medical journal articles. These articles were written to promote the use of the company's hormone-replacement drug, Prempro.

Use of hormone replacement therapy dropped, with a corresponding drop in breast cancer rates. Since then, more than 10,000 women affected by side effects have filed lawsuits against drugmakers Pfizer and Wyeth. More than 8,000 of these lawsuits have been combined into a single case, before US District Judge William Wilson in Arkansas.

Wilson ordered to unseal Wyeth's ghostwriting documents in response to a request by the defendants - the New York Times and the journal PLoS Medicine. The documents revealed that Wyeth paid medical communications firms to ghostwrite at least 40 articles between 1997 and 2005. The communications firms also reportedly secured doctors to put their names on the studies as authors.

The articles, published in 18 different medical journals, promoted hormone replacement for treatment of not only menopause symptoms, but also other conditions such as Parkinson's disease. Both Wyeth and the studies' purported authors did not inform the journals that the studies were funded by the company. The journals were also not informed about the writers being employed by the company.

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After a wait of five days, Internet search services firm Google, Inc., US, continued to be kept uninformed on whether or not its operating licence in China would be renewed, according to media reports. The licence, issued by the Chinese government, is necessary for Google to operate its China-based website, Google.cn. Tensions between the company and Chinese officials have put the licence renewal in doubt.

Google's relations with Beijing have been tense since it announced in January 2010 that it no longer wanted to cooperate with Chinese web filtering following hacking attacks. The company closed its China-based search engine in March and began routing users to its unfiltered Hong Kong site. It recently stopped automatic switching following objections from the Chinese government. Chinese government officials had said that if Google continued redirecting users, the company's Internet Content Provider licence would not be renewed.

Google's web search services have also been partially blocked in China. According to company spokeswoman Jessica Powell, Google Suggest, a feature that provides probable search terms when user types their query, continues to be blocked.

The loss of its Chinese licence is expected to set back Google's efforts to tap into the world's most populous Internet market of nearly 400 million users. Web surfers can still reach the Chinese-language Hong Kong site by typing in its address, but industry analysts predict that web surfers are likely to switch to Chinese competitors such as Baidu.

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A Google search feature was reportedly blocked in China on Thursday. Google users in China were unable to use Google's search suggestions feature, as the company awaits Beijing's decision on whether to renew its operating license amid tensions over censorship.

According to Google spokeswoman Jessica Powell, the search queries produced by Google Suggest are being blocked for mainland users in China. Normal searches that do not use query suggestions remain unaffected.

Google's relations with Beijing have been tense since the US-based search giant announced in January that it no longer wanted to cooperate with Chinese Web filtering following hacking attacks. Google closed its China-based search engine in March and began routing users to its unfiltered Hong Kong site. The company recently stopped automatic switching following objections from the Chinese government. Chinese government officials had said that if Google continues redirecting users, the company's Internet Content Provider licence will not be renewed.

The loss of its Chinese license would set back Google's efforts to tap into the world's most populous Internet market of nearly 400 million users. Web surfers can still reach the Chinese-language Hong Kong site by typing in its address, but industry analysts predict that are likely to switch to Chinese competitors such as Baidu Inc.

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Germany's federal justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, has reportedly expressed concern over Apple's practice of compiling data on users of its new iPhone. The company has been termed the latest technology giant to fall afoul of the country's stringent privacy laws.

iPhone 4, the latest version of Apple's smartphone, was recently launched in the German market. Under German law, it is illegal to collect personal data without an individual's permission - whether it be geographic location or web traffic. The justice minister has asked Apple to notify state data protection authorities about the kind of data it was gathering. Also, Apple has been asked to clarify the time for which data is being stored and for what purpose.

In a recent statement, Apple said that iPhone 4 provides its users in Germany with the option to deny the transfer of any personal information to third parties. However, in the user manual for the new phone circulated in Germany, Apple has said that it reserves the right to forward data like the geographic location of individuals to other companies.

German privacy laws are observed to be among the strictest in Europe. The country has its own enforcement agencies to levy fines and take action in privacy matters. The cases are usually handled by a data protection or consumer protection authority. It was at the request of a data protection supervisor in Hamburg that Google was forced to disclose in May that it had improperly collected 600 gigabytes of personal data while it gathered information for its Street View map archive. The disclosure set out investigations in 12 countries, including Germany, the US, Spain and France. European regulators are now pressing Google to hand over the data it had improperly collected on their citizens.

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Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, has announced plans to stop redirecting users of the Google.cn site to its Hong Kong page. Since the company's January announcement that it was not willing to censor results on Google.cn, it has been automatically redirecting everyone using Google.cn to Google.com.hk. This redirect, which offers unfiltered search in simplified Chinese, was working well for users and for Google. However, Chinese government officials have said that the redirect is unacceptable, and if Google continues redirecting users, the company's Internet Content Provider licence will not be renewed.

Instead of automatically redirecting all users, Google has now started taking a small percentage of them to a landing page on Google.cn that links to Google.com.hk, where users can conduct web search or continue to use Google.cn services. This approach is seen to ensure commitment not to censor results on Google.cn and give users access to all services from one page.

Google has announced that over the next few days it will end the redirect entirely, taking all Chinese users to the new landing page. The company has re-submitted its ICP licence renewal application based on this approach.

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Internet search services provider Google Inc is reportedly examining the impact new Chinese regulations could have on its Google Maps service. China's State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping recently announced new regulations that require firms providing online map and location services to apply for a license.

According to reports published in the official China Daily newspaper, the laws give China the right to close providers that fail to get a license. To be eligible for a license, service providers would need to keep map servers storing data within China and have no record of information leaks over the last three years. The mapping bureau has reportedly approved 18 domestic firms to provide online mapping services. Several foreign companies had applied for a license.

Google Maps is one of Google's most popular products. It enables users to search local maps and plot routes for free. Google products and services such as Google Groups, YouTube and Blogger are already blocked in China. The new regulations could pose a new hurdle for Google. Earlier in March, the company moved its China servers to Hong Kong after a diplomatic spat with Beijing over censorship.

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About 30 US states are looking to work together to examine how Google, Inc.'s Street View vehicles were able to collect Internet users' personal data from unsecured wireless networks. Led by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the joint investigation will seek additional information from Google. Also, it will examine whether or not laws were broken when the company mistakenly collected data on people's web usage.

In a recent interview, Blumenthal said that a core group of state attorneys general had agreed to combine their resources and expertise to scrutinise the issue. According to him, over 30 states had expressed interest in the matter. He expects a 'significant group' of states will ultimately join the probe.

The multi-state inquiry is the latest development in a growing privacy controversy that made news across the globe. Google has blamed the mistake on an experimental piece of software which was accidentally used in its signal-collection tool. It has hired an Internet security firm to examine the software error.

In May 2010, Google acknowledged that its Street View vehicles had inadvertently collected data over public Wi-Fi networks while marking the location of the Wi-Fi networks and taking pictures for its online mapping service. The company has reportedly said that while it was a mistake to collect personal data, it does not believe it has broken any laws. According to a Google spokesperson, the company continues to work with relevant authorities to answer their questions and concerns.

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French data protection agency Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertes (CNIL) has said that Google Inc. recorded passwords and bits of e-mail messages while collecting data for its Street View mapping service. France is the latest country to accuse Google Inc. for illegally gathering private data from Wi-Fi networks in the country through its Street View project.

Google recently came under fire for capturing online activities over Wi-Fi networks in over 30 countries while it was photographing neighbourhoods for its Street View feature. The company has been handing over data to authorities in the affected countries for the past two weeks.

CNIL is reportedly examining the data that it received from Google on June 4. According to a CNIL representative, the organisation may yet seek financial or criminal penalties over the privacy breach.

Earlier last month, Google acknowledged that it had mistakenly collected data over public Wi-Fi networks in more than 30 countries. The company had then said that the information was sent over unencrypted residential wireless networks as Google's Street View cars with mounted recording equipment passed by. The company also said that the data collection that took place in all the countries where Street View had been catalogued was unintentional and happened due to a programming error.

Australia and Germany have already launched their own investigations into the matter. Several state attorneys general in the US are also looking into the issue.

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Austria's national library, Osterreichischen Nationalbibliothek (ONB), has announced a 30-million-euro deal with Internet search services provider Google Inc. to digitise 400,000 copyright-free books, a vast collection spanning 400 years of European history.

According to ONB, the Austrian library project concerns one of the world's five biggest collections of 16th- to 19th-century literature, totaling about 120 million pages. Under the deal, Google will cover the costs of digitising the collection - set at around 50 to 100 euros per book. The ONB will pay to prepare the books for scanning, store the book data, and provide public access to it.

Scanning work will begin in 2011 in Bavaria in southern Germany, and is expected to last around six years. The library hopes that the process will help preserve its original works, as well as provide digital back-up copies in case of a disaster. According to Johanna Rachinger, head of the ONB library, Google will not have exclusive use of the scanned books, which will be accessible on the ONB's website at www.onb.ac.at, the Google Books library at books.google.fr and its European counterpart www.europeana.eu.

Google has been scanning millions of books to create a digital library and electronic bookstore. The project has been dogged by controversy because of anti-trust, copyright and privacy issues. Google has until now digitised about 12 million books, drawn from over 40 libraries. This includes those of Stanford and Harvard universities, with a similar deal struck in March with Rome and Florence universities in Italy.

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Internet search services provider, Google, Inc., US, has once again come under criticism for its Street View project. A crime prevention association in Spain has accused Google of illegally gathering private data from Wi-Fi networks in the country through its Street View project, and filed a suit against the company in a Madrid court. Many countries have recently raised several doubts and questions regarding the company's method of data collection.

The Spanish Data Protection Association (AEPD) started a probe on May 19 to determine if the company had broken the law protecting citizens' personal data and rights.

Earlier last month, Google had said that it had collected data over public Wi-Fi networks by mistake in about 30 countries. It was then suspected that the company might have violated privacy laws. Privacy commissioners globally have also questioned the company about privacy issues.

Under pressure from European officials, Google acknowledged that it had collected snippets of private data worldwide. The company had then said that the information was sent over unencrypted residential wireless networks as Google's Street View cars with mounted recording equipment passed by. The company also said that the data collection that took place in all the countries where Street View had been catalogued was unintentional and happened due to a programming error. It, however, assured that the information had not been used and would be deleted as per regulations. Javier Rodriguez, Google's Director for Spain, has said that the data would be returned to AEPD.

It is now being suspected that the company might have committed a crime under Article 197 of the Criminal Code. Violation of the law could draw up to four years in prison.

In addition, Greece and Austria have also banned Google's Street View vehicles.

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Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, will reportedly surrender the data it illegally collected over unsecured wireless networks. Google's chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, has said that the company would share the data with regulators in France, Germany and Spain. The data is thought to include snippets of personal information like bank account numbers and e-mail.

Earlier, Google had resisted to requests from European officials and privacy advocates to surrender the data, stating that it required time to evaluate legal issues. In a recent interview to The Financial Times, Schmidt said that the software code responsible for the data collection was in 'clear violation' of Google's rules. Google will publish a review of its privacy practices within next month. The company also plans to publish the findings of an external audit into its Wi-Fi snooping operations.

Last month, Google admitted that it had, since 2006, systematically collected private data while compiling its Street View photo archive. The information was sent over unencrypted residential wireless networks as Google's Street View cars with mounted recording equipment passed by. The company had then assured that the information has not been used and would be deleted as per regulations.

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US-based consumer advocacy organisation Consumer Watchdog and the Center for Digital Democracy have called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Google's recent acquisition of display advertising company, Invite Media, for around $70 million. According to the organisations, the deal raises substantial competitive and privacy concerns.

Combining Invite Media's database with the information Google gathered though the AdMob deal and the earlier DoubleClick acquisition raised substantial privacy concerns. According to senior officials at both organisations, the deals give Google unprecedented access to consumers' personal data. The Invite purchase appears to be anticompetitive, they said.

Google formally announced its acquisition of Invite Media, a company that developed a system for real-time bidding on display ad space, on June 3, 2010. According to the company, it has been investing significantly in its display ad business, and as a result, publishers are getting improved returns while advertisers and agencies are running more effective campaigns. Invite Media, Google said, will add to that equation.

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Fitted with radio aerials, the street view car of Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, has reportedly mapped the UK's entire wireless network. The database thus collated, media reports indicate, is used for commercial purposes through Google's search engine.

Every WiFi wireless router (a device that links a computer with the Internet) has reportedly been entered into a Google database. According to media reports, the street view cars have photographed almost every home in the country.

The data is used on Google Maps to help cell-phone and iPhone users to access information relevant to the area. The project remained secret until a recent inquiry in Germany forced Google to admit that it had 'mistakenly' downloaded e-mails and other data from unsecured wireless networks.

Google had then argued that companies such as Skyhook Wireless, which has a contract with Apple, have already mapped the networks. According to Google, the information, which lists the networks' Service Set-ID (SSID) number and Media Access Control (MAC) address but not their house number, is publicly available. This is so because the wireless signals extend beyond the property in which they are located.

Though Google has suspended the use of street view cars across the world, its work in the UK is already complete.

Authorities in the US, the UK and other countries have asked Google to retain the downloaded e-mails pending a full inquiry. However, it is not clear what its obligations are concerning the WiFi data. Privacy campaigners point to a breakdown in regulation. They claim that more meticulous regulation with a deeper comprehension of the issues involved and the related technology might have ensured that such a breach of privacy did not happen.

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US lawmakers have reportedly strengthened their enquiry into the privacy practices of two Internet companies - Google, Inc. and Facebook, Inc.

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee recently asked Facebook and Google to cooperate with investigations into privacy practices at both companies. Representative John Conyers Jr. has also sent mails expressing concern on whether the two companies are doing enough to protect users' privacy.

Google came under fire for capturing online activities over Wi-Fi networks in over 30 countries while it was photographing neighbourhoods for its Street View feature. Facebook rolled out privacy fixes this week after being critisised for pressing users to publicly share more personal information.

Conyers has asked Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Chief Executive, to explain his company's privacy practices. Also, he wanted Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, to retain the data and records related to the Wi-Fi data collection and to cooperate with state and federal agencies. The House Judiciary Committee is considering hearings and legislation.

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GenomeQuest, a US-based provider of sequence data management (SDM) products, has announced the immediate availability of GenomeQuest 6.3 for IP, the latest version of its online IP sequence search product.

Overall GenomeQuest for IP offers researchers a comprehensive, easy-to-use research solution with unmatched content aggregation, search algorithms, and analysis tools. New capabilities offered in the 6.3 version include integration of DNA and Protein Searching; content expansion; and enhanced search and analysis. The result browser has been upgraded to the GenomeQuest 6.0 platform, allowing users to interactively query/filter/group on any field, quickly pinpoint matches of most interest, and generate comprehensive IP search reports. Multiple users can collaborate on shared datasets.

Additionally, GenomeQuest 6.3 for IP gives life sciences professionals Web-based access to Thomson Reuters' GENESEQ database. The two companies are hosting free seminars to present that latest features and seamless integration between the two products, in South San Francisco (June 10) and Boston (June 22).

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US-based consumer advocacy organisation Consumer Watchdog has called on the Federal Trade Commission to launch an immediate probe of Google’s prying on private WiFi networks. In a blog post on its Website, Google recently admitted that it had, since 2006, systematically collected private data while compiling its Street View photo archive. The information was sent over unencrypted residential wireless networks as Google's Street View cars with mounted recording equipment passed by.

The flagrant intrusion into consumers’ privacy came to light as a result of tough questions from European regulators. While Google now acknowledged gathering ‘payload data’ from WiFi networks, the company, less than a month ago, had denied accumulating the information. Google engineers attributed the discrepancy to a ‘mistake.’

Consumer Watchdog has called on the FTC to document what data Google has been gathering, for how long and what the company does with it. The FTC has the authority and public trust necessary to get to the bottom of Google’s data collection practices. The probe should reveal exactly how consumers’ privacy has been compromised and what remedies are required, said Consumer Watchdog.

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European privacy regulators and advocates reacted angrily after Internet search services provider Google Inc. recently admitted that it had, since 2006, systematically collected private data while compiling its Street View photo archive. Under pressure from European officials, Google recently acknowledged that it had collected snippets of private data worldwide.

In a blog post on its Website, Google has said that the information was sent over unencrypted residential wireless networks as Google's Street View cars with mounted recording equipment passed by. The company also said that the data collection that took place in all the countries where Street View had been catalogued was unintentional and happened due to programming error. Google has apologised for the error. The company assured that the information has not been used and would be deleted as per regulations.

German minister for food, agriculture and consumer protection, Ilse Aigner, has demanded a full accounting after Google revealed that the data collection could include the websites viewed by individuals or the content of their e-mails. According to the German minister, this was a violation of privacy law.

Johannes Caspar, the data protection supervisor for Hamburg, who is leading the German government's dealings with Google on the issue, said the company's disclosure of illegal data collection would be looked into by a panel of European national data protection chiefs that advises the European Commission. He however declined to speculate the action European officials could take.

The improper collection of data came to light after German data protection officials asked Google, two weeks ago, to detail the information it had collected from household wireless local area networks.

Despite its efforts to address the situation, Google may reportedly face an uphill battle in Germany overcoming skepticism about its intentions. Till Steffen, the justice senator for the city-state of Hamburg, has introduced a bill in the German Parliament that would fine Google for displaying personal property in Street View without the consent of owners. The bill, introduced in the upper house of the German Parliament, would fine Google $62,500, or 50,000 euros, for each time it failed to remove the personal property of a citizen who requested to be exempted from Street View.

Google has faced a series of legal entanglements over privacy issues in Europe. Earlier, in April 2010, data protection regulators from eight European countries, New Zealand and Israel sent a joint letter to Google criticising the company's social networking service, Buzz, which reportedly publicised the connections of some users without their permission. This latest episode could further complicate Google's business in the region.

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The Open Book Alliance (OBA) has released an analysis that details how the proposed Google Books Settlement is likely to violate international laws and treaties. Cynthia Arato, a litigator on intellectual property and copyright issues, states that numerous provisions of the proposed Google Books settlement would, if approved, violate the treaty obligations of the US. She further states that if the settlement is approved, it may give rise to legal action against the country before an international tribunal and would certainly expose the US to diplomatic stress.

According to OBA, this is the first time that the proposed class action settlement between Google, the Association of American Publishers and the Author's Guild has been fully evaluated. The analysis seeks to determine the claims and remedies that other nations may seek through the WTO for the violations that an approved Google Books Settlement is expected to incur.

Specifically, it was found that the settlement would grant Google automatic rights to exploit digitally millions of books without requiring the company to obtain any authorisation from any foreign copyright owner or author. It would also require these foreign rights holders to jump through burdensome hoops simply to exercise a watered-down contractual right - that the settlement creates - to halt such use, the study adds.

Foreign nations that wish to challenge the US over treaty violations of the settlement may do so before the WTO. Violations can lead to financial penalties or trade sanctions against the US. The governments of France and Germany have already formally objected to the proposed settlement.

The study further questions why the US ought to upset its foreign relations for the benefit of one company. Open collaboration that rejects exclusive deals is the best way to create a true international library, it concludes.

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Three major French publishers are reportedly filing lawsuits against Internet search services provider, Google, Inc., US, for the illegal scanning of their catalogues. This was announced by Antoine Gallimard, CEO of French publisher Gallimard, at the Paris Book Fair, media reports have indicated. The move follows extended efforts by Gallimard to stop the scanning.

Google has digitised and made publicly available parts of at least 12 million literary works, many of which are under copyright, it has been reported. According to Gallimard, Google has continued to post its works despite requests to stop. Gallimard will be joined in its action against Google by Flammarion, Eyrolles and Albin Michel.

In 2006, Gallimard was the first French publisher to demand that Google withdraw its titles. After a gap of six months, Google restarted scanning Gallimard titles and has continued ever since.

Digitisation has become a controversial issue and has stirred debate over the sensitive issue of defending cultural and intellectual property. French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand will discuss the issue during a planned trip to Google's California headquarters in July. He's not the first French politician to take on Google. President Sarkozy reacted negatively to GBS 2.0 - the revised version of the Google Books Settlement - in December, stating he would block Google from digitising 'France's heritage'.

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Potomac Institute Press, a subsidiary of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, US, has launched a new online publication - Synesis: A Journal of Science, Technology, Ethics and Policy (www.synesisjournal.com). Prof. James Giordano, Chair of Academic Programs and Director of the Center for Neurotechnology Studies at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, will be the Editor-in-Chief of the journal.

Synesis will appear semi-annually and will seek to be a forum for critical thinking and for analysis of the science, ethics and policy needed for successful human endeavour in a wide range of fields. It will present original papers that address science, technology, ethics and policy – both singularly and in conjunction with one another. All papers are peer-reviewed. The journal welcomes submissions from those who seek to form intellectual bridges within and between disciplines.

The debut issue of Synesis, Winter/Spring 2010, is entitled ‘Toward a Green Economy: Science, Technology and Policy in Interaction,’ and is guest edited by Dr. James Tate, former Science Advisor to the Secretary of the US Department of the Interior and Director of the Potomac Institute's Center for Environmental Economics and Ethics.

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Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, has announced an agreement with the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage to digitise up to a million out-of-copyright works at the National Libraries of Florence and Rome. The libraries will select the works to be digitised from their collections, which include several rare historical books, including scientific works, literature from the period of the founding of Italy and the works of the nation's famous poets and writers.

According to Google, the deal marks the first time the company has joined forces with Italian libraries. Also, it is the first time that the company has had a government department as a close partner on such a project.

The costs will be covered fully by Google. These books will be available for inclusion in EU's Europeana project - of which the Florence Library is a contributing member - and other digital libraries.

Google has similar agreements with Madrid's Complutense University, Oxford University, the Bavarian state museum and others.

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The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) has announced the release of a diagram titled ‘GBS March Madness: Paths Forward for the Google Books Settlement.’ The diagram, developed by Jonathan Band, explores the many possible routes and outcomes of the Google Books Settlement, including avenues into the litigation and appeals process.

A fairness hearing on the Google Books Settlement was recently held. Judge Chin is however yet to decide whether the amended settlement agreement, submitted to the Court by Google, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers, is ‘fair, reasonable, and adequate.’ The diagram shows that Judge Chin’s decision is only the next step in a very complex legal proceeding that could take a dozen more turns before reaching resolution.

According to LCA, the diagram does not reflect every possible twist in the case, despite its apparent complexity. Neither does it address the substantive reasons why a certain outcome may occur or the impact of Congressional intervention through legislation. The precise way forward is difficult to predict, according to industry observers.

The diagram can be viewed at http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/gbs-march-madness-diagram-final.pdf.

The LCA is a coalition of library associations made up of the Association of Research Libraries, the American Library Association and the Association of College and Research Libraries.

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Six global publishers have obtained an injunction against Swiss-based Rapidshare AG. The move is projected to be an important step toward holding Internet companies accountable for threatening authors’ livelihoods and publishers’ ability to invest in and develop quality content and resources. Plaintiffs in the case were Bedford, Freeman and Worth Publishing Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Macmillan; Cengage Learning Inc.; Elsevier Inc; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.; and Pearson Education, Inc.

The judgment handed down by a German court in Hamburg, effective February 17, 2010, ordered Rapidshare to implement measures to prevent illegal file sharing of the 148 copyright-protected works cited in the lawsuit, filed on February 4, 2010. The court ruled that Rapidshare must monitor its site to ensure the copyrighted material is not being uploaded and prevent unauthorised access to the material by its users. The company will be subject to substantial fines for non-compliance. Rapidshare collects monthly fees from many of its users and encourages the unauthorised uploading of content with a variety of reward programmes.

Speaking on behalf of the publisher plaintiffs, Tom Allen, CEO of the Association of American Publishers, said that this ruling not only affirms that file-sharing copyrighted content without permission is against the law, but it attaches a hefty financial punishment to the host, in this case Rapidshare, for noncompliance.

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The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) has released an issue brief that reviews the legal status of streaming entire films to students located outside of physical classrooms. This follows the recent news of a disagreement between the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a media equipment trade association over the streaming of films to students as part of an online courseware system.

Innovations in secure streaming and online courseware systems are seen to hold significant promise for institutions serving faculty and students who demand increased access to institutional and library holdings. Many questions have been raised concerning the use of these technologies and copyright law, and the LCA issue brief aims to address these concerns and foster a balanced discussion.

The LCA issue brief explains characteristics that could increase the likelihood that a particular use will be allowed as well as the arguments that could lead a court to find in favour of educational uses. It also explains how these statutory provisions interact and, most importantly, how the scope of fair use is affected by the other provisions in the Copyright Act.

The Copyright Act includes several provisions that allow users to copy, perform, distribute or display works without permission from a rightsholder. The LCA issue brief surveys three provisions of the Copyright Act that could arguably support streaming entire films.

The strongest argument is observed to be grounded in Section 107 — the fair use provision. Fair use is a flexible, evolving doctrine that is often helpful to scholarly and educational users and users of new technology. Section 110(1) and (2) specifically address the issue of educational use of films, but they are seen to be less flexible. Whether these provisions will allow for a particular use will depend on the details of the use as well as how a court chooses to interpret certain key parts of the Copyright Act.

The issue brief is available online at http://www.librarycopyrightalliance.org/bm~doc/ibstreamingfilms_021810.pdf.

The Library Copyright Alliance is a coalition of library associations made up of the Association of Research Libraries, the American Library Association and the Association of College and Research Libraries.

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A US district court has once again delayed the ruling on Internet search engine firm Google’s controversial move to digitise millions of out-of-copy books. This is expected to put on hold Google’s plans to become the world’s largest online library.

Judge Denny Chin told a packed courtroom that he would listen with an ‘open mind’ to arguments for and against Google’s settlement with some authors and publishers over the right to scan and publish titles. He had to postpone the ruling since there was ‘too much to digest’ – this referred to the vast quantity of data to be examined. The court reportedly received over 500 comments ahead of the hearing, the purpose of which is to determine the fairness of a $125 million settlement struck in 2005.

Google has been trying to reach a judgment since the project’s launch in 2004. According to the company and its supporters, the project, if approved, will create an online database for people to access millions of books including orphan works. Critics, including some authors, library groups and competitors such as Amazon and Microsoft, argue that Google’s deal would go against copyright laws and give the company exclusive rights to many titles.

Publishers and authors have been upset with Google posting extracts of their books online without fairly compensating them. The Google Books initiative, launched five years ago, faced severe criticism in 2005 after the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild of America sued the company over copyright infringement. In October 2008, Google reached a settlement with publishers and authors in the US over the copyright infringement suit filed in 2005. It agreed to pay $125 million to solve pending claims and establish an independent unit to provide revenue from advertising and sales to authors and publishers who agree to digitise their books.

Later, in November 2008, a US judge granted a preliminary settlement approval with an opt-out deadline of May 2009. But in April 2009, another US judge amended the preliminary approval order to extend the opt-out deadline to September 2009. The court hearing to determine the terms and conditions of the Google Books agreement was then set for October 2009. Following more criticism from leading publishing and technology firms, the hearing was further delayed to 2010. On February 19, 2010, the decision was once again postponed indefinitely.

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of public interest and consumer groups have urged a US federal appeals court to preserve consumers' rights and the first sale doctrine in a battle over an Internet auction of used computer software. The EFF was joined by the Association of Research Libraries, the American Library Association, the Association of College and Research Libraries, Consumer Federation of America, US Public Interest Research Group and Public Knowledge.

In an amicus curiae brief filed with the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, the EFF supported Timothy Vernor, an online software reseller who tried to auction four authentic packages of Autodesk's AutoCAD software on eBay. Autodesk sent takedown notices to block his auctions and threatened to sue him for copyright infringement, claiming that its software is only ‘licensed,’ never sold.

At the heart of the case is the first sale doctrine. Copyright’s exclusive right of distribution gives copyright owners control over the first vending of their works. The first sale doctrine allows legitimate purchasers to sell, lend, or trade works freely, i.e., without having to ask permission from the copyright holder. The first sale doctrine thus ensures a ‘second life’ for copyrighted works in libraries, archives, used bookstores, online auctions, and hand-to-hand exchanges.

The brief argues, in part, that the first sale doctrine is well established, serves critical economic and democratic values, and promotes access to knowledge and the preservation of culture. Libraries rely on provisions in the Copyright Act, such as first sale, to accept donations of special collections and loan materials, and to preserve these works. The case raises serious issues regarding the potential for software vendors to evade the first sale doctrine via contractual licence agreements, which has strong implications for libraries and their users.

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The Open Book Alliance (OBA) has issued a statement in response to Google's request for an amended Google Books Settlement approval. The OBA and other objectors - including the US Department of Justice, authors, publishers, academics, libraries and privacy advocates from around the world - have collectively made the case for rejection of the amended settlement agreement proposed by Google, the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild.

Despite such opposition, Google has offered only cosmetic changes to its amended settlement, the OBA has stated. The arguments it now offers to defend the amended settlement are the same arguments that have been rejected by the Department of Justice – twice. Contrary to what Google's attorneys say, the amended settlement will still offer the company exclusive access to books it has illegally scanned to the detriment of consumers, authors and competition, says the OBA statement.

Further, the OBA says, Google's request also fails to answer concerns from consumer advocacy groups like the Institute for Information Law & Policy. Such groups reportedly fear that the amended settlement, if approved, would, ‘set a dangerous precedent for future cases and undermine democratic political processes.’

Members of the OBA include Amazon.com, American Society of Journalists and Authors, Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, Internet Archive, Microsoft, National Writers Union, New York Library Association, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Small Press Distribution, Special Libraries Association and Yahoo!.

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The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has submitted its views on the proposed amended settlement between the Authors Guild and Google, Inc. It has advised the District Court for the Southern District of New York that despite substantial progress reflected in the proposed agreement, class certification, copyright and antitrust issues remain. The DoJ has also said that the US remains committed to working with the parties on issues concerning the scope and content of the settlement.

In its statement of interest filed with the court, the DoJ stated that the US believes the parties have approached this effort in good faith, and that the amended settlement agreement is more circumscribed in its sweep than the original proposed settlement. However, the amended settlement agreement suffers from the same core problem as the original one. The DoJ has called the amended settlement an attempt to use the class action mechanism to implement forward-looking business arrangements that go far beyond the dispute before the court in this litigation.

In September 2009, the department had submitted views to the court on the original proposed settlement agreement. At that time, it had proposed that the parties consider changes to the agreement that might help address the US’ concerns, including imposing limitations on the most open-ended provisions for future licensing; eliminating potential conflicts among class members; providing additional protections for unknown rights holders; addressing the concerns of foreign authors and publishers; eliminating the joint-pricing mechanisms among publishers and authors; and providing a mechanism by which Google’s competitors can gain comparable access.

In the latest filing, the DoJ has recognised that the parties made substantial progress on a number of these issues. Nevertheless, the department also said that the amended settlement agreement still confers significant and possibly anticompetitive advantages on Google as a single entity. This may enable the company to be the only competitor in the digital marketplace with the rights to distribute and otherwise exploit a vast array of works in multiple formats. The department continues to believe that a properly structured settlement agreement in this case offers the potential for important societal benefits.

The settlement agreement aims to resolve copyright infringement claims brought against Google by the Authors Guild and five major publishers in 2005. The claims arose from Google’s efforts to digitally scan books contained in several libraries and to make them searchable on the Internet. The district court’s hearing on the proposed amended settlement agreement is slated for February 18, 2010.

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The Open Book Alliance (OBA) has formally filed Amicus Curiae in opposition to the proposed settlement between the Authors Guild, Inc., Association of American Publishers, Inc. and Google, Inc.

The OBA filing states that the torrent of criticism to the settlement may have produced amendments to the class definition, but it has not affected Google’s conduct. It further states that the Court’s procedures are ill-suited for resolution of what is now at stake in this matter – rewriting the copyright law, restructuring the publishing industry, and maintaining a competitive search market.

The proposed Google book settlement is not a philanthropic effort to bring literature into the 21st century and bridge a literary divide, says the OBA. In reality, Google is focused on becoming the sole owner of an immense digital library that will improve the company’s advertising-based search business. This de facto exclusive licence will provide Google with an enormous advantage over its search competitors, the OBA argues.

The brief explores the market importance of so-called ‘tail queries’ – rare or obscure search requests that are hard to fulfill accurately. It explains how digital rights to virtually all out-of-print books provide Google with a decisive advantage in responding to tail queries. The brief further states that if Google can deny its search rivals the ability to integrate the same corpus of books, its lead in search will become insurmountable.

The brief also uncovers ‘carefully crafted exceptions’ inside the settlement regarding the Google Partner Program. Google has signed ‘Partner’ agreements with thousands of publishers. Many – if not all – of the named publishers in the settlement have their own agreements with Google that will govern the payments they receive from the company in lieu of the provisions that were negotiated in the settlement for other class members. The brief states that this permits the parties to negotiate secret side deals to govern the economic terms of books licensed to Google under the Settlement at any time, even after a court review of the Amended Agreement, effectively evading judicial and public scrutiny.

The OBA believes that the proposed settlement threatens to bottleneck the access to and distribution and pricing of the largest, private digital database of books in the world. It would do so by using the class action mechanism to not only redress past harm, but to prospectively shape the future of digital book distribution, display and search.

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The French Publishers Association (Syndicat National de l'Edition, SNE), has endorsed about 10 pages of objections to the second draft of a settlement between Google and American publishers and authors.

The objections, to be sent to Judge Denny Chin before January 28, are reportedly different from those of the first draft agreement. Some French publishers will also send their own individual objections. The first draft of the Settlement was discarded after the US Department of Justice raised objections to it.

SNE representatives have stated that new legislation would be required to extend France's fixed book price Lang Law, 1981, to digital books. While the Competition Authority has recently said that regulating a non-existent market is uncalled for, SNE members have expressed hope that the government would expedite the issue.

Google reached the settlement in 2008 with authors and publishers, over a copyright infringement suit they filed against the search services company in 2005. Under the settlement, Google agreed to pay $125 million to resolve outstanding claims and establish an independent Book Rights Registry. The registry provides revenue from sales and advertising to authors and publishers who agree to digitise their books.

Publishers and authors have been upset with Google posting extracts of their books online without fairly compensating them. In December 2009, a French court ordered Google to pay more than €300,000 in damages and interest and to stop digital reproduction of the material. As part of the ruling, the company was also ordered to pay €10,000 a day in fines until it removes extracts of some French books from its online database.

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Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, has threatened to pull out operations in China citing massive cyber attacks on its computers and China’s efforts to ‘limit free speech on the web.’ The move, if pursued, would be a highly odd reprimand of China by one of the biggest technology companies, according to industry observers. Google has reportedly coveted China’s over 300 million web users for years now.

The company had launched Google.cn in January 2006 under an agreement with the government that purged its Chinese search results of banned topics. Since then, the company has come under fire for supporting a system that increasingly restricts what citizens can read online.

The cyberattacks, which took place last week, were directed at some 34 companies or entities, most of them in Silicon Valley, California. It is suspected that the attackers may have succeeded in breaking through elaborate computer security systems and obtaining crucial corporate data and software source codes. Google has, however, confirmed that it did not suffer losses of that kind.

The scope of the hacking and the reason and identities of the hackers remained uncertain. However, Google’s reaction amounted to an unambiguous repudiation of its own five-year courtship of the Chinese market, which major multinational companies consider key to their growth prospects. The company has said it would cease to run google.cn and would consider shutting its offices in China, if a new arrangement to provide uncensored results on its search site does not come through. The Google office in China employs some 700 people - many of them highly compensated software engineers - and has an estimated $300 million in annual revenue.

While Google’s business in China is currently small, it is estimated that the country could soon become one of the most lucrative Internet and mobile markets. A withdrawal could significantly reduce the company’s long-term growth.

Google has faced increasingly restrictions from the Chinese government over the past one year. In June 2009, the government forced the company to stop a function that lets the search engine suggest terms. The government had earlier blocked nationwide access to its main search engine and other services like Gmail.

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Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, has reportedly apologised to Chinese authors for scanning thousands of their books without obtaining permission from them. The books were included in the controversial Google Books project. A statement by Erik Hartmann, the Asia-Pacific head of Google Books, was posted on the website of the Chinese Writers Association. The Association is one of the groups leading accusations against Google.

According to the China Written Works Copyright Society, thousands of books by Chinese authors were added to Google Books. Google originally claimed ’fair use’ protections in copyright law allowed it to show snippets of in-copyright books that it scanned from US research libraries. The project has raised objections from authors and publishers in Germany, France and the US.

The China Written Works Copyright Society is in talks with Google to try to solve outstanding copyright issues and agree terms for compensation. However, Chinese writers have so far refused the company’s offers.

Publishers and authors have been upset with Google posting extracts of their books online without fairly compensating them. In December 2009, a French court ordered Google to pay more than €300,000 in damages and interest and to stop digital reproduction of the material. As part of the ruling, the company was also ordered to pay €10,000 a day in fines until it removes extracts of some French books from its online database. Earlier last year, Google reached a settlement with publisher and authors in the US over a copyright infringement suit filed in 2005. Google agreed to pay $125 million to solve pending claims and establish an independent unit to provide revenue from advertising and sales to authors and publishers who agree to digitise their books. A US judge has scheduled a hearing for February 18 on the revised settlement.

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The Association of American Publishers, the national trade association of the US book publishing industry, recently issued a statement on the decision by the World Trade Organization Appellate Body affirming that China is in violation of its WTO obligations.

According to the statement, the Association welcomes the Appellate Body’s findings that certain measures employed by China to restrict the importation and distribution of reading materials are incompatible with its WTO obligations. The decision is seen as a significant development for the US publishing industry. It is hoped that this will pave the way for further liberalisation of the Chinese market. Increased access to China’s market is expected to benefit US and Chinese creators and will offer Chinese consumers a greater variety of copyrighted works.

The Association of American Publishers’ more than 300 members include most of the major commercial publishers in the US, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies—small and large. AAP members publish hardcover and paperback books in every field, educational materials for the elementary, secondary, postsecondary, and professional markets, scholarly journals, computer software, and electronic products and services. The protection of intellectual property rights in all media, the defense of the freedom to read and the freedom to publish at home and abroad, and the promotion of reading and literacy are among the Association’s highest priorities.

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The American Library Association (ALA), the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) recently sent a letter to the US Department of Justice (DOJ) asking for ongoing judicial oversight of the Google Book Search settlement, if approved.

The library associations have urged the DOJ to request the court to review the pricing of the institutional subscriptions to ensure that the economic objectives set forth in the settlement agreement are met. Libraries, as the potential primary customers of institutional subscriptions, are concerned that the absence of competition could result in profit-maximising pricing.

The associations also expressed disappointment with the DOJ’s failure to urge the parties to the settlement, which include Google, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, to require representation of academic authors on the Book Rights Registry board. As the groups explained in their filings with the court and in their meeting with the DOJ, academic authors wrote the vast majority of the books Google will include in its database. According to the associations, without representation of academic authors, the Books Rights Registry may establish a pricing model that maximises profit rather than public access to academic works.

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A French court has reportedly ruled against Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, in a copyright infringement case filed by a French publisher. According to the court, Google violated copyrights by digitising books and putting extracts online without authorisation.

The court has ordered Google to pay more than €300,000 in damages and interest and to stop digital reproduction of the material. As part of the ruling, the company has also been ordered to pay €10,000 a day in fines until it removes extracts of some French books from its online database. Google claims to have complied with French copyright law and has plans to appeal the decision.

The suit was originally filed in May 2006 by French publisher La Martiniere and later joined by the French authors group SGDL and French Publishers Association. The suit is just one of several filed by publishers and authors who are upset with Google posting extracts of their books online without fairly compensating them. Earlier in 2008, Google lost a lawsuit filed by the Authors Guild. The company was ordered to pay authors and publishers $125 million as compensation then. An amended agreement in November clarified certain changes and updates to the settlement.

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Construction information provider Reed Construction Data (RCD), US, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reed Elsevier, has amended a suit in federal court against McGraw-Hill Construction Dodge, a unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. The amended complaint raises new charges that Dodge unlawfully misappropriated RCD’s confidential and trade secret information regarding specific construction projects and used that information to populate its own project database.

The original lawsuit, filed October 8, 2009, in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, charged that Dodge since 2002 used a series of fake companies to pose as RCD customers and gain access to RCD’s construction project information database.

RCD’s amended complaint now alleges that Dodge also used its access to RCD’s database to misappropriate RCD’s construction information by downloading hundreds of project-related documents and viewing the specific details for thousands of construction projects. Dodge subsequently used this information to populate its own database.

Because of this conduct, Dodge was able to make misleading claims that its products were superior to RCD’s, thus preventing companies from making fair and objective comparisons of RCD’s and Dodge’s products. As a result, hundreds of companies made misinformed buying decisions and in many instances paid a higher price for construction data services.

The amended complaint cites multiple counts of misconduct by Dodge, including fraud, misappropriation of trade secrets, misappropriation of confidential information, unfair competition, tortious interference with prospective economic advantage, violation of New York’s general business law, violation of the RICO Act, RICO conspiracy, monopolisation, attempted monopolisation and unjust enrichment.

The suit seeks an unspecified amount in lost profits and punitive damages, trial by jury, and injunctive relief as a result of Dodge’s misuse of RCD’s proprietary construction project information.

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The American Library Association (ALA), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) have announced the release of ‘A Guide for the Perplexed Part III: The Amended Settlement Agreement.’ The guide describes the major changes in the amended settlement agreement (ASA), with emphasis on those changes relevant to libraries.

While many of the amendments will have little direct impact on libraries, the ASA significantly reduces the scope of the settlement because it excludes most books published outside of the US. In addition, the ASA provides the Book Rights Registry the authority to increase the number of free public access terminals in public libraries that had initially been set at one per library building, among other changes.

Looking ahead, the Court has accepted the parties’ recommended schedule and set January 28, 2010, as the deadline for class members to opt out of the ASA or to file objections, and February 4, 2010, as the deadline for the Department of Justice to file its comments. The Court will hold the fairness hearing on February 18, 2010.

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The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) is testing a new uniform disclosure form for reporting potential conflicts of interest among authors. The 14 journals that are ICMJE members, including the Annals of Internal Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and the New England Journal of Medicine, have adopted the form. The American Academy of Family Physicians has said that its peer-reviewed journal American Family Physician will be adopting a slightly modified version of the ICMJE form.

The ICMJE introduced the new form in an October 2009 editorial. Authors of articles published in biomedical journals are asked to disclose information about their associations with commercial entities that provided support for the work described in the submitted manuscript; their associations with commercial entities that could be viewed as having an interest in the work; similar financial associations involving their spouse or partner or their children under 18 years old; and nonfinancial associations that may be relevant to the manuscript, which may be personal, professional, political, institutional or religious.

The ICMJE will test the new form until April 10, 2010. The form now posted on the ICMJE Web site includes instructions to help authors provide the information. A sample completed Form is also available at www.icmje.org/sample_disclosure.pdf.

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The US federal judge overseeing the Google Books settlement has reportedly granted preliminary approval to the revised settlement. According to the court order, the new version is ‘within the range of possible approval.’ The order also set February 18, 2010 for a final fairness hearing on the agreement, which will restore access to millions of out-of-print books.

According to Google, the agreement promises to benefit readers and researchers, and enhance the ability of authors and publishers to distribute their content in digital form.

The Open Book Alliance (OBA), a group of parties who oppose the deal, still does not approve of the new terms. It noted that the Justice Dept. has until February 4 to weigh in with its opinion of the revised settlement.

The OBA recently expressed criticism over Google’s revised book settlement proposal. It had sought a settlement proposal that would not grant Google an exclusive set of rights (de facto or otherwise) over the world's largest digital database of books.

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Internet search services provider Google, Inc., the Authors Guild (AG) and the Association of American Publishers (AAP) recently released their revised book settlement proposal in an attempt to revise the existing legal agreement.

According to Open Book Alliance co-chair Peter Brantley, the initial review of the new proposal discloses that Google and its partners are performing a sleight of hand; fundamentally, this settlement remains a set-piece designed to serve the private commercial interests of Google and its partners. None of the proposed changes appear to address the fundamental flaws illuminated by the Department of Justice and other critics that impact public interest, he points out. Brantley further charges that by performing surgical nip and tuck, Google, the AAP, and the AG are attempting to distract people from their continued efforts to establish a monopoly over digital content access and distribution; usurp Congress's role in setting copyright policy; lock writers into their unsought registry, stripping them of their individual contract rights; put library budgets and patron privacy at risk; and establish a dangerous precedent by abusing the class action process.

Last week, the Open Book Alliance issued a set of requirements that the new settlement proposal must adhere to in order be true to these principles. Most critically, the settlement proposal must not grant Google an exclusive set of rights (de facto or otherwise) or result in any one entity gaining control over access to and distribution of the world's largest digital database of books.

The Open Book Alliance is a coalition of librarians, legal scholars, authors, publishers and technology companies created to counter the proposed Google Book Settlement. The Alliance is now reviewing the new settlement in depth and will provide additional feedback shortly.

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The Association of American Publishers (AAP) has applauded the Chinese government’s recently issued public notice conveying to state-run libraries the importance of strengthening protection for copyright-protected academic and medical journals. It has further emphasised that ending intellectual property violations affecting books and journals in China continues to be among AAP’s highest priorities. The Chinese statement was made at the recent US-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) meeting.

The notice calls for the relevant departments of the Chinese government to begin inspections of libraries to determine whether unauthorised duplication, communication or electronic dissemination of copyrighted works is occurring. If a library is found to be engaged in unauthorised activity, copyright administrative departments are told to deal with violators in accordance with Chinese law. Libraries are instructed to adhere to all copyright laws and regulations. They are also required to seek permission from the copyright owner for the appropriate use or dissemination of the copyright protected work.

AAP has further stated that it will continue to strengthen relationships with the Chinese government and publishing industry to ensure that progress continues and that these commitments are translated into concrete actions. Among other commitments made by China at the JCCT meeting, Beijing has assured that it will impose maximum administrative penalties on Internet infringers. It has also begun a four-month campaign to clamp down on Internet piracy.

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US-based Cornell University Library has announced the release of a book titled Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for Digitization for US Libraries, Archives, and Museums. The book is projected to help professionals at cultural heritage institutions address issues of using the Internet legally to improve public access to their vast collections.

Based on an Australian manual written by Emily Hudson and Andrew T. Kenyon of the University of Melbourne, the book has been developed by Cornell University Library’s senior policy advisor Peter B. Hirtle, along with Hudson and Kenyon. It has been tailored to conform to American law and practice.

The development of new digital technologies has led to fundamental changes in the ways cultural institutions fulfil their public missions of access, preservation, research and education. Many institutions are developing publicly accessible websites that allow users to visit online exhibitions, search collection databases, access images of collection items, and in some cases create their own digital content. Digitisation, however, also raises the possibility of copyright infringement. It is imperative that staff in libraries, archives and museums understand fundamental copyright principles and how institutional procedures can be affected by the law.

Copyright and Cultural Institutions seeks to assist understanding and compliance with copyright law. It addresses the basics of copyright law and the exclusive rights of the copyright owner, the major exemptions used by cultural heritage institutions, and stresses the importance of “risk assessment� when conducting any digitisation project. Case studies on digitising oral histories and student work are also included.

The book can be purchased at https://www.createspace.com/3405063, and freely download at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1495365 and http://hdl.handle.net/1813/14142.

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The British Library, the national library of the UK, has announced that it expects researchers to benefit from proposals announced recently by Lord Mandelson and IP Minister, David Lammy. The Library has welcomed initiatives to make copyright fit for the digital age. It has long argued that educators and researchers will profit from the resolution of issues on copyright and improved access to research material; and that these changes will boost the UK knowledge economy.

The latest proposal is viewed as recognition that the issue of orphan works is critical to the copyright roadmap. Allowing orphan works to be used without fear of liability will free up one of the obstacles that the creative industries face on a day-to-day basis, the British Library maintains.

The Library has also stated that it welcomes and looks forward to the results on the SABIP study on the relationship between copyright and contract law, to be published at the end of 2009. It says research is built upon clarity of access to, and reuse of, copyright material. This is not guaranteed when access and reuse provisions vary from contract to contract.

Exploring the difference between commercial and non-commercial intent and use has also been welcomed by the British Library. This is seen to facilitate mass digitisation of historical material that has no commercial value, but of high academic importance that sits in libraries, museums and archives.

The British Library has expressed belief that successful public policy formation in copyright should incorporate the principles of public interest; preservation of cultural heritage; inclusion of orphan works, fair dealing; and technology neutral.

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The European Commission (EC) has adopted a ‘Communication on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy’ aiming to tackle the important cultural and legal challenges of mass-scale digitisation and dissemination of books, in particular of European library collections. The Communication was jointly drawn up by Commissioners Charlie McCreevy and Viviane Reding.

Digital libraries such as Europeana will provide researchers and consumers across Europe with new ways to gain access to knowledge. For this, however, the EU will need to find a solution for orphan works, whose uncertain copyright status means they often cannot be digitised. Improving the distribution and availability of works for persons with disabilities, particularly the visually impaired, is another cornerstone of the Communication.

Commissioners McCreevy and Reding stressed that the debate over the Google Books Settlement in the US once again had shown that Europe could not afford to be left behind on the digital frontier.

The Communication addresses the actions that the EC intends to launch: digital preservation and dissemination of scholarly and cultural material and of orphan works, as well as access to knowledge for persons with disabilities. The challenges identified by the EC stem from last year’s public consultation on a Green Paper, the EC’s High Level Group on Digital Libraries and the experiences gained with Europeana.

The EC will now hold talks to find viable solutions for simple and cost-efficient rights clearance covering mass-scale digitisation and the online dissemination of library collections still protected by copyright. This concerns both out-of-print works and orphan works.

The digitisation and dissemination of orphan works pose a particular cultural and economic challenge. The absence of a known rightholder means that users are unable to obtain the required authorisation. The EC will now examine this phenomenon more in detail via an impact assessment. The aim is for an EU-wide solution to facilitate the digitisation and dissemination of orphan works and the establishment of common 'due diligence' standards to recognise orphan status across the EU.

In addition, a stakeholder forum on the needs of disabled persons, in particular visually impaired persons, will examine policy responses, including ways to encourage the unencumbered EU trade of works in accessible formats.

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Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP), a tool devised by the worldwide publishing community to help make copyright work on the web, is being upgraded for the first time since it was first released in November 2007. ACAP Version 1.1 has been released with the aim of making it easier for publishers, search engine operators and other aggregators to implement the tool.

The new version includes a number of clarifications, as well as new features which, it is hoped, will broaden the appeal of ACAP. The most significant change is in providing explicit rules for how aggregators should interpret some of the more complex forms of expression in ACAP. It has now been made clear that, where an aggregator is unable (for whatever reason) to interpret a complex permission expression as the publisher clearly intended, the alternative is to interpret the expression as a prohibition. This is expected to help avoid the risk of using the publisher’s content in ways that the publisher had not intended should be permitted.

New features include a number of extensions to the ACAP vocabulary. Using the PLUS Coalition’s License Definition Format, it will now be possible to indicate when permissions data is embedded in a photograph. The new enhanced version also makes it possible to express constraints upon the presentation of content to end-users based upon their location (country, domain name, IP address range).

ACAP has been developed by World Association of Newspapers, the International Publishers Association and the European Publishers Council in collaboration with publisher participants and search engines. In February 2008, MPS Technologies, the technology arm of Macmillan India, had announced that its e-book platform, BookStore, had been successfully used as part of an intense 12 month ACAP pilot scheme. MPS Technologies developed a test BookStore site for the ACAP pilot - the only publisher participant to focus on e-books - and made a significant contribution to the success of the project. Later, ACAP 1.0 was implemented on 1,600 known websites across 53 countries worldwide.

The ACAP Technology Working Group is now turning its attention to how ACAP can be applied to the growing range of business models for online delivery of copyright content. The next version is likely to add new forms of expression to make ACAP more expressive and flexible, capable of being communicated in a variety of ways and interoperable with a wider range of web content delivery applications.

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Construction information provider Reed Construction Data (RCD), US, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reed Elsevier, has filed a suit in federal court against McGraw-Hill Construction Dodge, a unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. The suit charges Dodge with unlawfully accessing confidential and trade secret information from RCD since 2002 by using a series of fake companies to pose as RCD customers.

The corporate espionage lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeks an unspecified amount in lost profits and punitive damages and trial by jury. It also seeks injunctive relief as a result of Dodge’s misuse of RCD’s proprietary construction project information.

The complaint charges that Dodge hired consultants to subscribe to RCD’s confidential data under the cover of fake names and companies. Dodge then allegedly manipulated the information to create misleading comparisons between Dodge’s and RCD’s products and services in an effort to mislead the marketplace.

The complaint cites 11 counts of misconduct by Dodge, including fraud; misappropriation of trade secrets; misappropriation of confidential information; unfair competition; tortious interference with prospective economic advantage; violation of New York’s general business law; violation of the RICO Act; RICO conspiracy; monopolisation; attempted monopolisation; and unjust enrichment.

The New York office of international law firm Troutman Sanders filed the action, led by partner William N. Withrow, Jr.

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The hearing over a settlement between Google and US authors and publishers has been postponed considering objections on copyright and anti-trust grounds. The US District Court Judge Denny Chin agreed with the request from the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the US Authors Guild to delay the October 7 hearing on the legal settlement.

The judge's order came on the same day as French publishers and authors took Google to court in France over the book-scanning project. Supported by France's 530-member Publishers' Association and its SGDL Society of Authors, the plaintiffs are contesting Google's campaign to digitise books without prior authorisation of publishers or authors. The French case has been adjourned until December 18.

Facing objections from the US Justice Department and others to the deal, the authors and publishers asked the New York judge to delay the hearing on the settlement. According to the judge, Google and the authors and publishers were in negotiations with the Department of Justice, which "will result in significant changes to the existing settlement agreement."

The request for a delay in the hearing came four days after the Justice Department advised Chin to reject the settlement. According to the Justice Department the book-scanning project has the potential to breathe life into millions of works that are now effectively off limits. The project however raises copyright and anti-trust issues in its current form. The agency encouraged the parties to continue their discussions.

Google and the authors and publishers reached the settlement in 2008 to a copyright infringement suit they filed against the search services company in 2005. Under the settlement, Google agreed to pay $125 million to resolve outstanding claims and establish an independent Book Rights Registry. The registry provides revenue from sales and advertising to authors and publishers who agree to digitise their books.

Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo! have filed objections to the settlement with the court, along with the French and German governments, privacy advocates and consumer watchdog groups.

Earlier this month, the American Library Association, the Association of College and Research Libraries and the Association of Research Libraries submitted a supplemental filing with the New York District Court. The purpose of the supplemental filing was to address developments that have occurred since the groups submitted their filing on May 4.

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The American Library Association (ALA), the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) have submitted a supplemental filing with the US District Court that is overseeing the proposed Google Book Search settlement. The purpose of the supplemental filing is to address developments that have occurred since the groups submitted their filing on May 4.

While the library associations’ position has not changed since their initial filing, the groups believe that recent activity should be brought to the court’s attention. These include an amended agreement reached between Google and the University of Michigan, the University of Texas-Austin and the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Google’s recent public statement regarding privacy; and the library associations’ communication with the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice (DOJ). In their supplemental filing, the associations call upon the court to address concerns with pricing review, to direct Google to provide more detail on privacy issues, and to broaden representation on the Books Rights Registry.

Both the filings emphasise that vigorous oversight by the court is needed to ensure the proposed Google settlement does not erode core library values, such as equity of access to information, patron privacy and intellectual freedom. Google plans to sign the settlement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers.

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Internet search services provider Google, Inc.’s book-scanning project has been criticised by a group of authors, publishers and the governments of France and Germany, it has been reported. According to them, the plan would give Google too much control over out-of-print books.

The complaints were raised at a EU hearing in Brussels that is reviewing how a $125 million settlement between Google and US publishers will affect the EU. A group that represents Google rivals including Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft Corp. has alleged that the deal would create a cartel involving thousands of publishers.

Google is currently working with Oxford University’s library and six others in Europe to scan out-of-print books that are no longer copyright protected. The project, which began in 2004 with books from Harvard University, the New York Public Library and other sources, has digitised over 10 million books. According to Google, the agreement will ‘bring back to life’ millions of books that are moldering on library shelves and will create a new market for out-of-print books.

Germany has called the electronic copying of books without the consent of copyright owners as unacceptable and has asked European regulators to look into how the settlement affects EU rights. German publishers are concerned that their books, which are still commercially available in Europe, would be considered “out of print� if they are not sold in the US. While Germany submitted its objections on August 31, France recently presented objections over the deal to the US court ahead of the October 7 hearing.

The US settlement, which is yet to be approved by a judge, covers orphan works - titles for which no one can be identified to give permission for digital use.

In 2005, Google had been sued by authors and publishers who said their copyrights would be violated by scanning books and making them available online. In October 2008, the company agreed to settle two copyright lawsuits with authors and publishers over its book-scanning service, which could make it the primary source for millions of out-of- print books.

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Librarians, legal scholars, authors, publishers and technology companies have announced the formation of a coalition – the Open Book Alliance – that will counter the proposed Google Book Settlement in its current form. The proposed settlement is between Google, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the Authors’ Guild. Approval of the settlement plan currently is pending before the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The deal is also currently being investigated by the US Justice Department on antitrust grounds.

The Open Book Alliance will seek to inform policymakers and the public about the serious legal, competitive and policy issues in the settlement proposal. Members of the Alliance include Amazon, American Society of Journalists and Authors, Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, Internet Archive, Microsoft, New York Library Association, Small Press Distribution, Special Libraries Association and Yahoo!

In 2005, AAP and the Authors’ Guild filed a suit against Google, objecting to the company’s mass digitisation of millions of books on copyright violation grounds. The parties privately settled for $125 million and devised a scheme that would permit Google to charge libraries and consumers for access to the digitised books. Under the deal, Google, the Authors Guild and the AAP would gain significant new powers to control the fledgling market for digital books. The Open Book Alliance’s contention is that any digital library controlled by a single company and small group of colluding publishers would lead to higher prices and sub-par service for consumers, libraries, scholars and students.

The New York court considering the settlement has established a September 4 deadline for submissions on the settlement and indicated it planned to make a final decision on October 7.

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XML content server provider Mark Logic Corporation, US, and JustSystems, an independent software vendor in Japan, have announced a technology partnership. The alliance will enable enterprise organisations to streamline data aggregation, content creation and publishing of financial reports using XBRL. Details of how the two companies are working together to move the XBRL standard forward were revealed at the Mark Logic User Conference.

Driven by XBRL compliance requirements set forth by the SEC and by the need to eliminate accounting errors and fraud, JustSystems and Mark Logic will offer customers an out-of-the-box technology integration. The integration leverages the JustSystems xfy XBRL Report and MarkLogic Server in a bid to provide easy, scalable access to XBRL content.

This flexible integration option is seen to allow enterprises to effortlessly push complex financial XBRL content from MarkLogic Server to content applications built on the JustSystems xfy platform at any stage of a business workflow. Using this functionality, organisations can also easily analyse and create detailed financial reports from XBRL content and add XBRL-aware document management functionality to their existing MarkLogic Server deployments. The MarkLogic Server helps organisations unlock their information through applications which meet users' needs for findability.

JustSystems xfy XBRL Report lets users review and analyse XBRL data and share their results with others. To that end, xfy consumes XBRL, creating content that uses the XBRL data and publishes it in a web-ready HTML or PDF. Other users can view the published reports without any special software - just a standard web browser.