LISNews: Librarian News

The Justice Department has begun an inquiry into the antitrust implications of Google’s settlement with authors and publishers over its Google Book Search service, two people briefed on the matter said Tuesday.

Lawyers for the Justice Department have been in conversations in recent weeks with various groups opposed to the settlement, including the Internet Archive and Consumer Watchdog. More recently, Justice Department lawyers notified the parties to the settlement, including Google, and representatives for the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild, that they were looking into various antitrust issues related to the far-reaching agreement.

Full story here.

My sincere apologies for the tardiness on this episode. We had a family issue come up that necessitated traveling and the chaos that goes with it, so I'm just now getting it online.

This time around, The Faceless Historian ushers you down the aisle of history with some key stops in (THIS... IS...) Sparta(!). Then he provides a dash of poetry and weird books before introducing you to a daughter and a unicycling scientist. Where does it end? Well, I suppose you could use Google to find out.

Sometimes, you don't even know if there is barbarian At The Gates.

With a May 5 deadline for filing objections to the Google books settlement looming, opposition to and criticism of the settlement continues to cement.

I recently wrote about concerns among copyright and antitrust scholars and others that the settlement would grant Google a monopoly over millions of so-called orphan books, which are out of print and whose rights holders are unknown or cannot be found. I later gave more details of where the opposition was coming from.

Now some of the opposition is starting to jell. The Internet Archive, which is currently working to match Google’s effort to digitize millions of books from major libraries, has filed a motion to intervene in the case. The Internet Archive argues that the settlement gives Google — and Google alone — immunity from liability for copyright infringement for scanning and displaying orphan books. Without similar immunity, “the Archive would be unable to provide some of these same services due to the uncertain legal issues surrounding orphan books.” The filing notes that the parties in the suit — Google, the Authors Guild and major publishers — plan to oppose the Archive’s proposed intervention.

Full piece here.

A leftover from April 1.