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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