Amazon lodges complaint in Google Books case

Amazon believes that Google's deal with book publishers will allow it to fix prices

Amazon has filed a statement with a New York district court in opposition to Google's copyright deal with book publishers.

The company said in the filing (PDF) that the agreement would give Google an unfair monopoly over titles for which a copyright owner cannot be found, and would allow the company to fix prices.

"It is unfair to authors, publishers and others whose works would be the subject of a compulsory licence for the life of the copyright in favour of Google and the newly created Book Rights Registry," Amazon said.

"It is anti-competitive and violates anti-trust laws because it provides Google with an effective monopoly in the scanning and exploitation of millions of works whose copyright holders cannot be located or choose not to involve themselves in this class action."

Amazon and Google are in engaged in a heated battle for the electronic book market with the Kindle Market and Google Book Search programmes. Last month, Amazon joined with several other companies to form a group known as the Open Book Alliance.

The Amazon court filing is the latest attempt to derail Google's Books project, which has long been held up by copyright issues. Google finally reached a settlement with publishers in October 2008, but found itself under scrutiny from regulators over possible anti-trust violations.