Comments on: DOJ opens formal investigation into Google Books settlement

Government investigators will probe whether or not Google's agreement with publishers over the digital rights to index books violates antitrust laws.

[Pete Bardo]

I don't trust the AntiTrust Division. Is that anti-trust of the anti-trust?

This getting ridiculous.

[FutureGuy]

I bet you had a different opinion when they had done the same with MS.

[Police_States_of_America]

this problem can easily be solved:

-orphan works become PUBLIC DOMAIN
-Fair use for ALL including Google showing excerpts, now Google has effectively bought Fair use "rights" by reaching a settlement, other companies will be expected to do the same thing now

[Vegaman_Dan]

By your definition if a publisher decides to drop a title, then it becomes public domain. That's not fair to the author at all. By the time they find another publisher, the book could end up going to public domain with a loss of sales revenue.

The public domain laws are fine the way they are.

[Police_States_of_America]

You seem not to know what the word "orphan work" means, it does not refer to an out-of-print book, but one in which the author is unknown/not contactable (by anyone including publisher).

From what I understand right now, Google is actually trying to get exclusive rights to orphan works, rather than simply have them lapse into public domain.

[BtmnHatesRbn]

I don't know, but Google isn't asking for a dime to provide the knowledge for free.

So, instead of going after Google, why doesn't the Federalites hire Google and combine the resource with the Library of Congress, to allow all works to be accessed by all people to gain all knowledge, if they so choose to.

[FutureGuy]

You fail to understand, Google is a capitalist company. Everything it does somehow is tied to making money, its not a non-profit.

[mathcreative]

@FutureGuy he did say hire

[Rocketw]

Actually Google will be charging for access to these works and there is no regulation of price. They have a greed to allow universities and libraries free access.

[Random_Walk]

...course, it would be cooler if they instead used this as a vehicle to investigate the bat$h!t-crazy copyright laws as they exist today (40 years ago, copyright only lasted roughly 28 years, and that was it... now it's live of the author +70 years... and counting if Disney has anything to say about it).

[acousticb1-2009]

This is unfair as it is. They consider books that are availiable as non commercially viable. They should make all books availiable if it can be found in a book store then it should be as such.