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Digital Library

Google and copyright holders’ proposed digital library settlement has outraged its competitors.
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“Google and a coalition of authors and publishers now have until Friday to submit a new plan on how to drain the swamp of copyright law to let Google build the digital library of the future,” reports Wired. Google is being sued by copyright holders over its book digitization program – but after their initial settlement plans were rejected in October, a judge has awarded them until Friday to propose a new solution. The key issue at stake is the Google Book Search which allows is to display full scanned version of books old enough to escape copyright law. The anticipated settlement will also allow Google to provide large extracts of copyrighted books as advertising. This has sparked outrage amongst its competitors, including Yahoo and Microsoft, who point out that the settlement creates exemptions to copyright that apply only to Google.

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Related
Google’s controversial plan to create a digital library has been dealt another blow by the Justice Department, which has criticized the plans for having “significant legal problems” despite recent rewrites.

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