Google challenged over rights to digital library

By Michael Liedtke

Associated Press

Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and a prominent antitrust lawyer urged a federal judge Tuesday to block a class-action settlement that would give Google Inc. the digital rights to a vast library of books.

As that coalition warned of a literary cartel that would lead to higher prices and less competition, Sony Electronics, a technology trade group and economics professors came to Google’s defense by depicting the book deal as a breakthrough that would make millions of hard-to-find books available to anyone on the Internet.

Tuesday’s legal sparring came on the deadline for written arguments about a $125 million settlement that would entrust Google with a digital database containing millions of copyright-protected books, including titles no longer being published.

But at least one more key document is expected before U.S. District Judge Denny Chin holds an Oct. 7 hearing in New York to review the settlement. The Justice Department has until Sept. 18 to file its brief, which may provide some inkling on whether antitrust regulators have determined if the deal would hurt competition.

The settlement, reached last October, has raised the specter of Google becoming even more powerful than it already has become as the owner of the Internet’s most popular search and most lucrative advertising network.

Those concerns represented the crux of a 32-page brief written by Silicon Valley attorney Gary Reback, who helped the Justice Department pursue an antitrust case against Microsoft’s bundling of personal computer software in the 1990s.