Thursday June 11th 2009, by Piers Strickland
Further to my earlier post, it has been reported that the US antitrust authorities are looking closely at the Google Books project (link) and the settlement with the US Authors’ Guild and others (link).
Part of the concern seems to be that Google is trying to exert exclusive rights over certain works, specifically orphan works. Any kind of exclusivity, particularly when one party is one of the largest IT companies in the world, and the leader in this specific field, raises significant potential competitions concerns.
As a result, it seems that Google’s attempts to clear the copyrights in question is just the first part of a larger legal battle. The various competition authorities may prove an even tougher hurdle to overcome than the US authors.
The Google Books project is also an interesting example of the complex interplay between intellectual property rights (here copyright) and competition law. Certain intellectual property rights offer monopolies, whereas competition laws seek to prevent (unlawful) monopolies. The tension between these two positions add another dimension to this Google Books saga.
