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September 14, 2009 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today. For other up-to-the-minute news, check out ITI’s Twitter account: @ITINewsBreaks. CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.

House Committee Holds Hearing on ‘Competition and Commerce in Digital Books’

The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing on Sept. 10 on the topic of "Competition and Commerce in Digital Books." It drew considerable media interest, as the list of witnesses included representatives from Google, Amazon.com, The Author's Guild, the Copyright Office, and more. The prepared testimony for each of the witnesses is available for download at http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/hear_090910.html.

The testimony of Marybeth Peters, U.S. Register of Copyrights (http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/Peters090910.pdf), was noteworthy for being her first detailed comments on the controversial Google Book Search settlement, which she says is "fundamentally at odds with the law." Summing up her observations and concerns, she says, "[I]t is our view that the proposed settlement inappropriately creates something similar to a compulsory license for works, unfairly alters the property interests of millions of rights holders of out-of-print works without any Congressional oversight, and has the capacity to create diplomatic stress for the United States."

David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, drew considerable interest with his offer to allow its rivals to become resellers of the books covered by the settlement. As reported by a number of media and on the Google Public Policy Blog (http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/09/congress-examines-future-of-digital.html), he announced, "Google will host the digital books online, and retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore will be able to sell access to users on any internet-connected device they choose."

For an extensive summary and links to media coverage of the hearing, see the post by Gary Price on ResourceShelf: www.resourceshelf.com/2009/09/10/now-online-prepared-testimony-and-news-from-todays-house-hearing-on-competition-and-commerce-in-digital-books.