Business

FEDS EYE BOOK SCANS BY GOOGLE

Google’s $125 million proposed agreement to settle copyright issues with book publishers is being investigated by US antitrust regulators.

The issues raised by the settlement “warrant further inquiry,” US Deputy Assistant Attorney General William Cavanaugh said in a letter filed in US District Court in New York.

“The US has reviewed public comments expressing concern that aspects of the settlement agreement may violate the Sherman Act,” Cavanaugh said.

Google, which is creating an online database of books by scanning millions of titles, reached the agreement with publishers last year to settle a 2005 lawsuit filed by the Authors Guild, Pearson Plc’s Penguin unit and other publishers claiming the digitizing process infringed their copyrights.

The deal could make Google the main online source for millions of out-of-print books, raising antitrust concerns because it puts the rights to millions of books in the hands of one company. Before the settlement, publishers and authors fought the project on the grounds it constituted massive copyright infringement.