Microsoft, Yahoo, and Amazon have reportedly banded together under the organization of the Internet Archive and antitrust lawyer Gary Reback, to try and put a stop to Google’s settlement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers over Google Book Search.
Add to that, the New York Library Association, the Special Libraries Association, and the American Society of Journalists and Authors, who are part of the coalition, which has yet to be announced officially. Alex Pham with the LA Times reports:
The coalition’s members include players who normally would be sitting at opposite sides of the table. Reback, for example, is known for instigating the antitrust efforts against Microsoft. That they have agreed to join forces suggests the magnitude of concern raised by Google’s book-scanning efforts, Brantley said.
“By having a set of organizations speaking together, we can demonstrate the seriousness which we all confront by the issues raised by the proposal,” Brantley said in an interview. “We are all united in our understanding of the core issues, such as its impact on competitiveness and the threat to reader privacy.”
The coalition has until September 4th to make something happen, as the deadline for comments on the settlement, reached in October 2008, draws near. This settlement would see a 70%/30% revenue split between authors/publishers and Google respectively. Google is no doubt more interested in the potential ad revenue it could rake in.
Meanwhile, Google has been making friends with some former opponents. Reports this week, have Google close to a deal with the Bibliotheque Nationale de France (BNF, or the National Library of France), for one.
