The Justice Department, in a filing with a US District Court in New York, said the class action settlement raises copyright and anti-trust issues but it encouraged the parties to continue their discussions to address its concerns.<\/p>\n
“As presently drafted, the Proposed Settlement does not meet the legal standards this Court must apply,” the department said in a filing late on Friday with the court.<\/p>\n
“The public interest would best be served by direction from the Court encouraging the continuation of those discussions,” it said.<\/p>\n
The US District Court in New York is to hold a hearing on the settlement on October 7.<\/p>\n
Google reached a class action settlement in October with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers to a copyright infringement suit they filed against the Mountain View, California, company in 2005.<\/p>\n
Under the settlement, Google agreed to pay $125m to resolve outstanding claims and establish an independent “Book Rights Registry,” which will provide revenue from sales and advertising to authors and publishers who agree to digitise their books.<\/p>\n
Google rivals Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo! have filed objections to the settlement with the court along with the French and German governments, privacy advocates and consumer watchdog groups.<\/p>\n
Sony Electronics of Japan, maker of the electronic book reader the Sony Reader, and a group of 32 US professors of law and economics, have filed briefs supporting the deal.<\/p>\n