Google's Internet book store which opened Monday draws upon a portion of the 15 million printed books that Google has scanned into its computers during the past six years. Additionally, almost 4,000 publishers, including CBS Corp.'s Simon & Schuster Inc., Random House Inc. and Pearson PLC's Penguin Group are allowing Google to carry many of their recently released books in its new store.
"(These deals) will ensure that most of the current best sellers are among the 3 million e-books initially available in Google's store", said Amanda Edmonds, Google’s director of strategic partnerships.
Millions more out-of-print titles will appear in Google's store if the company can gain federal court approval of a proposed class-action settlement with U.S. publishers and authors. The $125 million settlement has been under review for more than two years, and faces stiff opposition from competitors, consumer watchdogs, academic experts, literary agents and even some foreign governments concerned hat Google might gain too much influence over a publication's pricing and availability in the still-new market for electronic books.
No comments:
Post a Comment