The chief official of copyright in the country joined the growing opposition to a settlement in a lawsuit that would give Google Inc. digital rights of millions of books no longer published.
Their objections cast a further shadow of doubt over whether a federal court will endorse the agreement, even after Google on Thursday offered a concession in order to encourage adoption.
Parties to the agreement "fundamentally clash with the law," said Marybeth Peters, director of the Copyright Office, to testify Thursday at a hearing of the Judicial Committee of the House of Representatives, which was broadcast on the Internet . He also expressed concern that the agreement undermines the ability of Congress to regulate copyrights, and warned it could have "serious international implications" for books published outside the United States.
Peters can not block Google's deal with U.S. authors and publishers. That decision is up to U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, who has scheduled a hearing on October 7 in New York to review the agreement.
But Peters' conclusions are likely to be referred at a time when critics of the deal try to convince China that it does not approve, "said Peter Brantley, director of access to non-profit organization Internet Archive. It has joined forces with Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. all Google rivals to lead the opposition to agree on the books.
It is unknown how it might influence the opinion of the Copyright Office on the federal Justice Department, which investigates whether the deal would hurt competition in the growing market for digital books. The department is expected to share some of their findings with Chin documents scheduled to be introduced on 18 September.
Under analysis are Google's plans to scan millions of books, make them searchable online and selling subscriptions and individual copies to consumers. Google says that this will inject new vigor to works that might otherwise go overlooked.
The deal for $ 125 million came last year after trade groups representing publishers and authors sued Google for violation of copyright.
Google says that over the past five years has made digital copies of more than 10 million books, including roughly two million titles that are no longer covered by copyright, and two million books that were included after the owners of rights given their explicit permission. The rest are sold out in bookstores, but are still protected by copyright.
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