A deadline has been set for the Google Book Search Settlement and all the interested parties, supporters and competitors are approaching the D-day with apprehension. There are volumes of legal briefs that are filed and scholars believe that the presiding judge is going to find it enormously difficult to resolve the matter quick and fast.

The settlement hearing has been scheduled for the 7th of this month. In addition to this, there is also a hearing on September 10th in the House Judiciary Committee.

There is a lot at stake with this deal and the interests of many like the immediate competitors, public and market competitors have to be balanced while reaching a verdict. A website was recently established by Google listing out all those in favor of the settlement which includes big names like Sony Corp. and Authors Guild. The Guild believes that this settlement can foster competition and destroy the monopolist status of companies like Amazon who is clearly an opponent of this deal.

Gary Reback, who is the antitrust lawyer, has filed a legal brief in favor of the Open Book Alliance which includes bigwigs like Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon who argue that the Google Books Settlement is illegal and can only be legalized if the government orders Google to hand over the license of the scanned books database over to third parties like Microsoft and Amazon for a marginal fee.

Microsoft claims that Google has been misleading the publishers by stating that it began to scan books many years earlier to compile a ‘card catalog’ of all the works; the company later changed its stand and entered into the digital book-selling business. What remains to be seen is if the arguments of the Open Alliance companies who had earlier abandoned their own book-scanning efforts are justified in seeking access to the Google database.

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Yesterday the U.S Department of Justice confirmed that it is investigating the terms related to settlement of Google Book Search. This was not a very important news for the media because it was known in April only and the news was confirmed when the DOJ sent formal requests (known as investigative demands”) to many book publishers.

Yesterday there were further developments in the field. The DOJ provided the court with procedural notification. The notification was that the U.S. is exploring the anti-trust dimensions of Google settlement. The hearing which is supposed to be a ‘fairness hearing’ will be on the 7th of October. U.S. has been given time till the 19th of September to present their side in written. This is a very small time interval given to the U.S.

The formal letter form the DOJ to the court had two paragraphs. The first paragraph has a mention of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. This act helps in increasing the competition and avoiding consolidation of power or control over markets. The main question asked by DOJ is whether Google has exclusive rights to which only they have access. There are arguments from the side of some legal scholars that this happens at times, especially in the case of orphan books. Google has denied this. The anti-trust investigation will enquire about the extend of rights Google has, on the books, the scanned material, the way that effects the prices, and the extend to which third parties can access the material.

Because of the lawsuit that is underlying, Google cannot walk away like it did during the Google-Yahoo paid search deal. This time the company cannot avoid a legal battle. The outcomes can be two ways: approval of the existing settlement is one and the other one is modification of selected terms.

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