UPDATE 1-Google, Authors try to answer book deal concerns

By Diane Bartz WASHINGTON, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Google and the Authors Guild filed a new version of a deal to create a massive online library on Friday in hopes that changes will answer possible antitrust and copyright concerns in the United States and overseas. Amendments to the settlement were crafted after extensive meetings with the Justice Department, according to the parties. Google's plan to put millions of books online has been praised for bringing broad access to books but has also been criticized on antitrust, copyright and privacy grounds. In one shift, money from unclaimed or orphan works will go to an independent fiduciary rather than go to the registry, according to a court filing made by the parties late on Friday. The Justice Department, in September, had singled out that arrangement as a conflict of interest since it was the registry which was also tasked with locating writers and paying them for their online sales. INTERNATIONAL OBJECTIONS Also, books in the registry and covered by the deal were reduced to those copyrighted in the United States or published in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. There had been significant international objection to the deal on the grounds that non-English speaking authors, in particular, were represented by the authors and publishers who sued Google but had no say in the negotiating of the deal. The deal is designed to settle a 2005 class action lawsuit filed against Google by authors and publishers who had accused the search engine giant of copyright infringement for scanning libraries full of books. In mid-September, the U.S. Justice Department urged a New York court to reject the plan because there was a "significant potential" that the division would eventually decide the settlement broke antitrust law. It also had concerns about violations of copyright law. Critics of the deal have been a varied group that includes Yahoo, Amazon, Microsoft, the National Writers Union, Consumer Watchdog and singer Arlo Guthrie. The case is Authors Guild et al v Google Inc 05-08136 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan) (Reporting by Diane Bartz, Editing by Sandra Maler) Keywords: GOOGLE/BOOKS ([e-mail]; [phone]) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved.

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