Google Book

Frankly, I was really hoping to see a court decision on this case which might provide a guideline on the fair use of digital copyright. As many critics are saying, Google seems to make a business decision to maintain its monopolistic position on the digital book market. I understand that is why US government agency is going to start antitrust investigation on this settlement. At a glance, Google book project is really cool and great benefit to the public and in some other sense it also could be profitable to authors as well because I do not think that the Google book actually give a serious impact on the printed book markets for the time being. Furthermore, under the settlement agreement, each book's author and/or publisher, whoever holds the copyright, retains the power to set the price on consumer access to the book, as well as the right to withdraw the book completely from the database. The antitrust concern also need to be balanced between the pro-competitive effect/consumer protection and the protection of right owner. I wonder how long the monopoly power of Google might be last in dynamic digital technology age.