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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