Amazon.com Files Brief Opposing Google's Settlement with Publishers
September 02, 2009
Tom Krazit
cnet.com
Amazon came out swinging Tuesday against Google's proposed settlement with book authors and publishers.
Amazon's opposition was made public last week when it joined the Open Book Alliance, but the company filed its own brief with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Tuesday arguing against making the proposed settlement final. In its filing (click for PDF), Amazon notes that it has also scanned books, but has not taken the controversial step that Google took in scanning out-of-print but copyright-protected books without explicit permission.
Way back in 2004, when Google began scanning books from libraries, it believed it had the right to scan the entire text of a copyright-protected book under fair-use laws so long as it only displayed a snippet of the contents. Authors groups and publishers vehemently disagreed, resulting in a class-action lawsuit and the proposed settlement at issue in this case.
Lawyers for Amazon wrote "Amazon also brings a unique perspective to this court because it has engaged in a book scanning project very similar to Google's, with one major distinction: As to books still subject to copyright protection, Amazon has only scanned those for which it could obtain permission to do so from the copyright holder."
The brief goes on to complain that the settlement "is unfair to authors, publishers, and others whose works would be the subject of a compulsory license for the life of the copyright in favor of Google and the newly created Book Rights Registry." Amazon wants Congress to intervene in the dispute over fair-use provisions in copyright laws, saying the use of a class-action settlement to obtain these rights "represents an unprecedented rewriting of copyright law through judicial action."
