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Microsoft, Amazon, and Yahoo! Join Coalition Against Google Books

by Warren Riddle on August 22, 2009 at 04:25 PM

Last October, Google agreed to pay a $125 million settlement to the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers in order to continue its digital publishing venture, Google Books. But the move still has to meet court approval. The Los Angeles Times reports that, as the window of opportunity to block the agreement closes -- there's a September 4th deadline for comments -- Microsoft, Yahoo! and Amazon have joined the soon-to-be-announced Open Book Alliance, an opposition group created by the non-profit Internet Archive.

If the agreement is approved, Google will be able to offer electronic versions of millions of out-of-print books, with 70-percent of the proceeds from sales going to authors and publishers. Google, meanwhile, would keep the remaining 30-percent. Peter Brantley, a member of the coalition told the L.A. Times that the alliance's concerns focus on Google Books's threat to competitiveness. "Google is trying to monopolise the library system," Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle told BBC News. He also said, "If this deal goes ahead, they're making a real shot at being 'the' library and the only library." [From: The Los Angeles Times, BBC, and Engadget]

Tags: amazon, antitrust, google, google books, GoogleBooks, microsoft, top, yahoo

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