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Google Doesn't Think it has a Monopoly on Ebooks

Posted 08/06/09 at 09:43:19 AM  by Paul Lilly

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In October of last year, Google reached a $125 million settlement as part of a three-year-old class action lawsuit accusing the search engine giant of infringing publisher and author copyrights with its library-digitizing Book Search project. But that would be far from the end of things. Last month, the Department of Justice confirmed it had launched a formal investigation into the settlement to see if it could find any evidence of anticompetitive practices, and if Google was looking for sympathy, it would be hard pressed to find any (read what Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had to say on the matter here).

But despite all the negative publicity -- or perhaps because of it -- Google maintains it isn't doing anything wrong and denies any talk of a monopoly.

"Of course, no one wants Google to monopolize the poor orphans," said Dan Clancy, engineering director of Google Book Search. "And I don't want to be -- what's the woman in Little Orphan Annie that runs the orphanage? I'm blanking -- I don't want to be her."

Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, which also owns a book scanning operation, sees things decidedly different than Google does. Not only will the settlement create a monopoly, but it will create two of them, Kahle says. Kahle believes Google will have a monopoly on orphans and the Book Rights Registry, as well as a second one that encompasses all rights holders who agree to join.

"Google will have permission to bring under its sole control information that has been accessible through public institutions for centuries. In essence, Google will be privatizing our libraries," Kahle wrote in the Washington Post.

Where do you stand on the issue? Hit the jump and sound off.

COMMENTS:2
TAGS: Google, monopoly, ebook, e-book, business
COMMENTS
avatarOpinion of a nut.

Submitted by BinaryMonkey on Thu, 08/06/2009 - 11:31am

Maybe it's just me, but I don't really see the issue here. What exactly is the problem with Google giving away public domain books? As long as they're only making public domain books available and not books that still hold copyrights, being the best and fastest at doing it should not instantly make them a monopoly. Now, if they're giving away copyrighted material, they should be called out for it, but not just because other companies are unable to pull themselves together enough to compete with them.

Where exactly does the crying monopoly and anti-trust thing end?
I enjoy doing sleight of hand tricks. There's a guy in Las Vegas named Mike Close that is much better than I am to the point that I am unable to compete with him. Now, at what point can I say that he holds a monopoly on close up sleight of hand tricks because do to his many, many years of practice he has created a huge gap between his skill and everyone else's that I've seen?
 
But I digress.
I do not believe that a company should instantly be labeled a monopoly because no other company is willing push themselves the next level to complete on equal footing. Any company that expects a handout from someone else that's doing a better job deserves to be crushed.

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avatarI'm not sure I understand...

Submitted by Pball1224 on Thu, 08/06/2009 - 9:53am

Can someone explain why google will have a monopoly? What's stopping any other company from doing the exact same thing? Just because copyright holders have agreed to allow Google to scan their works doesn't mean Google has exclusive rights to do so. Any other competitor could come along and do the same thing. Don't get me wrong, it's good that there are people out there checking up on Google, or any other huge company with lots of power, but in this case I'm a little confused why there is so much pressure against this project.

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