DOJ weighs in on Google books settlement

Apparently agreeing with recent criticism of the deal, the Department of Justice  urged a federal court on Friday to reject Google’s disputed settlement with book authors and publishers.

The class action settlement in The Authors Guild Inc. et al. v. Google Inc. as proposed, could potentially lead to copyright infringements. As such, the Department,

proposed that the parties consider a number of changes to the agreement that may help address the United States’ concerns, including imposing limitations on the most open-ended provisions for future licensing, eliminating potential conflicts among class members, providing additional protections for unknown rights holders, addressing the concerns of foreign authors and publishers, eliminating the joint-pricing mechanisms among publishers and authors, and, whatever the settlement’s ultimate scope, providing some mechanism by which Google’s competitors can gain comparable access.

DOJ press release here. More here.