[JURIST] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a statement of interest Thursday urging the US District Court for the Southern District of New York to reject the amended class action settlement in a copyright suit over Google’s book-scanning initiative. In its statement, which notes substantial progress toward resolving issues raised in September, the DOJ cites lingering copyright and antitrust concerns in the proposed settlement. The DOJ also stated that the agreement would provide Google with “anticompetitive advantages” with potentially monopolistic effects. The Open Book Alliance, a group composed of some of Google’s main competitors and several writers’ associations, praised the DOJ’s filing and said the current version of the agreement is “overreaching.” The settlement is expected to be reviewed by Judge Denny Chin on February 18.
The case originated when two lawsuits were brought against Google by the Authors Guild, a group seeking to preserve copyright protection for authors, and by other plaintiffs including the Association of American Publishers (AAP), McGraw-Hill, Penguin Group, and Simon & Schuster. Under the terms of the original settlement agreement, which was reached in October 2008, Google would pay $125 million to authors and publishers of copyrighted works. In return, Google would be allowed to display online up to 20 percent of the total pages of a copyrighted book, and would offer users an opportunity to purchase the remainder of any viewed book. In a separate case, a French court ruled in December that Google violated French copyright law through its book-scanning initiative.