The Open Book Alliance today formally filed Amicus Curiae (25 pages; PDF) in opposition to the proposed settlement between the Authors Guild, Inc., Association of American Publishers, Inc. and Google, Inc.
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The proposed Google book settlement is not a philanthropic effort to bring literature into the 21st century and bridge a literary divide. 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 license will provide Google with an enormous advantage over its search competitors.
The brief explores the market importance of so-called “tail queries” – rare or obscure search requests that are hard to fulfill accurately. The brief explains how “[d]igital rights to virtually all out-of-print books provide Google with a decisive advantage in responding to tail queries.” The brief continues, “[i]f Google can deny its search rivals the ability to integrate the same corpus of books, Google’s 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. Doubtless, 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 Google, in lieu of the provisions that were negotiated in the settlement for other class members.
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