Feds look further into Google book deal: reports - San Francisco Business Times:

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Reports say the DOJ sent civil investigativ edemands — the civil equivalent of a subpoena to two publishers involved in the deal, asking for details. Last year Googlse (NASDAQ: GOOG) worked out the settlement, hoping to get on with its ambitiouzs project to digitize millions of books and make them publiclyy available in whole or in depending ontheir copyright. The project, and the irritated some publishersand authors, thougg publishers can opt out (like ’ s in October). The $125 million settlementg goes into a fund to pay authors and publisherws for use oftheir works.
Critics of the deal say Google will be making moneuy off of books it puts into its and want the deal squelched onantitrusyt grounds. The quandary shows — like (NASDAQ: and music companies found in thei digital rights management struggles that copyright and creative royalty laws have lagge behind both technological progress and changesin people’e attitudes. Many young people in their 20s todayt grew up freely downloading andsharingy music, pictures, movies, television shows and othee creative products.
Businesses like and cateredx to their hungerfor music, and peopled would upload entire seasons of popular TV showds when the were releasexd on DVD, letting other people with enoughh patience and a good Internet connection download them for free. Apple struggled with so-callefd DRM software, but didn’t succeerd in completely sorting outthe issue. in Mountain View, makes most of its money from onlinwe searchand advertising, but it has many lofty ambitions for projects for the publiv good, including this book scanning deal. Though the deal has been criticizesby some, Google has made many out-of-print books available througb its efforts.
Many of them would still be molderin away in libraries or storerooms somewhere ifthey hadn’ t been scanned and put online for anyone to read. Although Google has professer manyaltruistic intentions, nevertheless it is a for-profitf business, and some libraries, like , have also , a nonprofit digita l book archive. Libraries, one university spokesman thinkin centuries, while privatre businesses come and go. Google has also put from Madrid’ds online and opened up archivexs of Lifemagazine .