GOOG to Revise Book Pact

U.S. District Judge Denny Chin has given Google Inc. (GOOG - Analyst Report), the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers until Nov 9 to submit a fresh proposal to address the concerns put forward by the Justice Department.
 
The original agreement for $125 million was announced in October last year in response to separate lawsuits filed by the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers.
 
The Justice Department has said that the agreement raises legal concerns with respect to antitrust law, reduces competition among publishers (if Google gets exclusive rights) and opens the door to price escalation as a result of Google’s monopoly.
 
The Judge did not set a deadline for objections after the new agreement was tendered. However, he stated that only objections related to the changes made in the new agreement would be considered, as the previous agreement had already been considered and was familiar to all.
 
William F. Cavanaugh, a deputy assistant attorney general said that the Justice Department would require 7-10 days for submitting an analysis of the new agreement.
 
The Open Book Alliance, which includes companies like Microsoft Corp. (MSFT - Analyst Report), Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO - Analyst Report) and Amazon.com (AMZN - Analyst Report), as well as other companies and entities, said that the time allowed was too short for the fundamental changes required. They also alluded to underhand tactics being employed by the search giant.
 
In a news conference held yesterday, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and co-founder Sergey Brin also commented on the book deal. The company maintains that “orphaned” works, whose publishers/copyright owners are untraceable or unknown, have never been the focal point for anyone until now. Brin also stated that there was no existing market for these works.
 
Schmidt admitted that some of the criticisms could be considered legitimate, while others stemmed from peoples’ resistance to change. He suggested that critics make an alternative proposal that could enable consumers to access the concerned works.

Read the full analyst report on GOOG

Read the full analyst report on MSFT

Read the full analyst report on YHOO

Read the full analyst report on AMZN