Google’s rival challenging over its Book Deal…

In October 2005, Google reached the settlement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, allowing Google to digitize millions of books, which is expected to have huge benefits for minority populations and their access to valuable information.
The Google book settlement, scheduled to be reviewed in an Oct. 7 court hearing, would allow Google to scan and make available scores of books, including millions of out-of-print titles. The digitized books will give minorities and poor people new access to titles that were formerly only available at large university libraries.
According to the Professor Rhea Ballard-Thrower, law librarian at the Howard law school. "Books are the great equalizer." The idea that a student in Boston at a very exclusive private school can read the same books that a student somewhere in an under funded, urban public school, that they can have the same access to the same materials is actually just amazing.
The president and CEO of the Leadership Conference Wade Henderson on Civil Rights say, "This project is part of a larger effort to democratize knowledge. To me, this project is so crucial because it helps to level the playing field at the most fundamental intersection of rights, knowledge and advocacy."
While on the other side, several groups have complained that the settlement could give Google power to monetize so-called orphaned works, books still under copyright protection but for which no one claims ownership.
This settlement has attracted opposition from various corners of the book world. The Department of Justice has also opened an antitrust investigation into the implications of the agreement. Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo had all agreed to join the group called Open Book Alliance that has been critical of the settlement plans to make a case to the Justice Department that the arrangement is anticompetitive.
In response David Drummond, the company's senior vice president for corporate development and chief legal officer said, Google will make privacy a top priority as it develops its Book Search product. The book settlement may not be perfect, he said, but is the result of three years of negotiation and compromise.
Despite several concerns about the settlement, the book project will bring "remarkable" access to blind people, said Charles Brown, advisor to the president of the National Federation of the Blind. People with sight impairments will be able to use text-to-voice and other technology to gain access to millions of new books.