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Judge Extends Deadline for Google’s Online Book Deal

November 9, 2009

San Francisco - A US district judge has extended the deadline for Google Inc. to allow the company to revise its agreement with copyright holders of books, a move which has draw government scrutiny over fear that the technology giant may monopolized the online industry.

In a court ruling, US District Judge Denny Chin said the revision of agreement, which was supposed to be filed on Monday, will be extended until Friday.

In 2005, authors and publishers filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Google over the alleged distribution of copyrighted books through the Internet.

However, the company and the copyright holders had reached an agreement last year but failed to execute this as antitrust regulators urged the US Department of Justice to investigate the settlement which may thwart competition and drive up the prices.

According to previous reports, the department of justice said the settlement can “potentially drive the prices of digital books which are increasingly becoming popular in the market.”

In response to such concern, Google officials said the agreement between the copyright holders will benefit the whole society as people will be able to access millions of books from the Internet.

Meanwhile, Google’s rivals including Microsoft, Amazon.com, and Yahoo have criticized the company’s agreement with authors and publishers, adding that this may result to monopoly.

Under the agreement, Google will give copyright holders 63 percent of revenue that will be generated from the online book deal.

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