A US judge rejected Google’s $125m settlement with publishers and authors to let it publish millions of books online. The judge said the deal to create the world’s biggest digital book library would be unfair to authors and could be exploitative as well.
Circuit Judge Denny Chin in Manhattan said the nature of the settlement that included authors automatically unless they opt out of it formally "would simply go too far" in giving it the power to "exploit".
It is believed that Google has already scanned about 12 million books from top libraries in the US. The search engine company has maintained that the efforts were to provide easier access to the world’s knowledge.
The Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers had first sued Google for violating copyright laws in 2005. But they reached a settlement after Google agreed to pay $125m to people whose copyrighted books have been scanned, and to locate and share revenue with other authors.
However critics argued that Google had an unfair competitive advantage and broke antitrust law. Judge Chin agreed on both counts while considering the case.
Chin said, "The ASA (amended settlement agreement) would give Google a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission."
Google said it was disappointed by the decision.
Google managing counsel Hilary Ware said, "This is clearly disappointing, but we’ll review the court’s decision and consider our options."
