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Google book-scan deal deadline now Friday

Proposed $125 million settlement would give Google digital rights to works

Image: Book scanner
A scanner passes over a book at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich., where one of hundreds of librarians from all over the world was helping Google Inc.'s Book Search create digital versions of all the estimated 50 million to 100 million books in the world.
Carlos Osorio / AP
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updated 11:22 a.m. ET Nov. 9, 2009

NEW YORK - Google says it needs until Friday to come up with a new proposal that would give it the digital rights to millions of out-of-print books.

The new timetable approved Monday by a federal judge is the latest twist in a 4-year-old copyright lawsuit over Google's ambitious book-scanning project.

Google thought it had settled the dispute with U.S. authors and publishers more than a year ago. But the agreement still hasn't won court approval because of concerns that the deal would give Google too much control over the digital book market.

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When U.S. antitrust regulators raised objections to the agreement in September, Google decided to redo the deal. The revisions were supposed to be filed by the end of Monday — before Google received the extension.

The case involves Google's plans to scan millions of books and make them searchable and available for purchase online.

A proposed $125 million settlement would give Google digital rights to those works. But the government told a federal judge in New York that the agreement threatens to give Google the power to increase book prices and discourage competition.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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