Open Book Alliance not Happy with Google's Amended Book Settlement

Posted 11/16/2009 at 1:26pm | by Bart Salisbury

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 No matter the outcome, there are those who will be unhappy with Google’s plans to digitize the universe of books and make them available online. Google, which is being sued over the venture, filed a revised agreement with the Federal Court in New York hearing the case. The revision contains what John Timmer of Ars Technica calls “significant concessions,” including limiting the scope of the project.

But the Open Book Alliance (OBA), isn’t buying into it. OBA co-chair Peter Brantley, in a statement, said “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.”

Brantley calls the revised agreement “a sleight of hand.” It “remains a set-piece designed to serve the private commercial interests of Google and its partners.” Further, Brantley maintains it does nothing to “address the fundamental flaws illuminated by the Department of Justice and other critics that impact public interest.”

Image Credit: Google