An anonymous reader points to Digital Daily, writing "Looks like the fireworks have begun early in Mountain View. On Thursday afternoon, the Department of Justice officially notified Google that it is investigating its book deal for violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act."
The move is the strongest sign yet that the DOJ may block the settlement, which critics claim would grant Google (GOOG) a monopoly on orphaned works-copyrighted texts without an identifiable copyright holder.
Heh, really? Maybe if there was some copyright reform no deal would be necessary. Maybe if copyright was an opt-in system, publishers could publish out of print books without having to worry about being sued by an absentee copyright holder.
Exactly, if we would go to a 20 year copyright (10 years with mandatory registration with a 10 year renewal) along with clauses allowing for non-commercial use and distribution of any book, movie, program, etc. which is not being sold to the general public or is not available in the USA. And allowing the breaking of DRM for non-commercial use. Such things would eliminate this so called "Google monopoly" and improve our economy/country.
That sort of non-copyright system would mean that anyone could block the revenue from any sort of creative work by simply making it available non-commercially. In other words, posting it on a P2P network would be legal, downloading it would be legal and nothing could be done to stop it.
That would mean I would never have to pay for a movie ever again, and there would be no legal recourse. It would mean that nobody would ever have to pay for software ever again, because it would all be free.
Oh, except for stupid people that would not know how to use P2P for downloading. They would have to pay. Too bad for them.
I agree, it would be nice, except for anyone that is paid for software today. Or movies. Or music. Or books. I guess it would be great if you work in a WalMart, because you could now afford all that stuff. My employees would have to join you at WalMart.
The way it currently is, I can get a better experience downloading a less-than-DVD quality movie then going to the movie theater.
Why would you download it first, if you're going to the theater regardless? Wouldn't it make more sense to download it while you're at the theater?
Okay, okay, sorry, but that sentence is a textbook example of why you should care about the difference between "then" and "than". I beg your forgiveness of my little compulsions.
How would that be stealing if it wasn't offered? Thats as stupid as me saying that you are stealing my profits when you buy a computer from Best Buy because I have a computer. Now, would I sell that computer to you? Probably not. How do you say that its stealing when you could never buy it anyways? With the cost of distribution approaching 0, there is no real reason to not make things available over the internet.
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday July 02, @09:02PM (#28567423)
Yes, the "monopoly" in question is called "copyright". If companies are worried about the monopoly of orphan works, the answer is easy. Orphan works should fall into the public domain.
I'm ok with this, as long as they investigate the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers as well.
Nah... all those old-line organizations seem to keep getting a free pass from any investigation. My guess is that they've been greasing the palms of numerous public officials for so long that to investigate them would air way too much dirty laundry. So the Feds pay them no attention, even though they're as dirty as the RIAA in their own way and just as deserving of investigation.
Stupid companies.. Stop getting too big! Stop making so much money! Stop being so much better than your competition that everyone only uses your product. Being competitive means allowing the other guys to catch up! It also means you can't branch out too much..so keep your focus narrow.
Theres a big difference between MS and Google. What part of Google locks you in? Lets see... I can have my Gmail on a third party computer. My Google Docs can be exported to a non-proprietary format without losing formatting unlike MS Office. Etc. There is not a single thing that keeps me tied in to using only Google products except that Google products are better. On the other hand MS (still does or at least used to) prevent other OEMs from selling or at least adverting products without Windows or with a different OS or else they suffer financially. Use DOC or DOCX to keep Word documents locked in a proprietary standard and proprietary implementation (and no MS's implementation of OOXML does not follow the specs). IE broke many standards forcing web developers to code for IE only and because it didn't match the standards other browsers either had to emulate these bugs or suffer incorrectly rendered pages. Etc.
Google is simply good at what it does so people keep coming back. MS simply forces people to use them.
No - there really isn't - not in a fundamental sense.
Both companies make voluntary deals with everyone involved, to mutual advantage. Both companies make products that people like and want, and people are willing and glad to pay for them. Both companies provide technologies that help their customers make a lot of money, using them.
As long as companies are dealing with everyone voluntarily, the government should not be involved. Only when a business violates an invidual's rights through force or fraud sho
As long as companies are dealing with everyone voluntarily, the government should not be involved. Only when a business violates an invidual's rights through force or fraud should the government get involved.
That would be true, but the government uses a lot of MS software. By keeping the specs of a bunch of things closed or by not adhering to standards, they end up costing us, the taxpayers more in the long run. By locking the government into proprietary technologies that they are the only ones who can have a 100% guarantee they are rendering the document "correctly" the government will keep buying into them. Its effectively the same as having a public works bid but only allowing one company to bid.
Anti-trust is based on the altruist idea that the more successful you are - (aka "selfish") - the more evil you are, and the evil successful need to be brought down to favor the less successful, or failures. This also happens to be the moral underpinning for bailouts, welfare, "soak the rich", government healthcare, and many more.
LOL, please give us a scripture reference for that ludicrous statement. I think you're talking about socialism.
Here's a pretty good place to start [acts17-11.com]. Particularly Jesus' speech in Mark. But please don't think I'm endorsing this stuff; I don't agree that the opinions of invisible fairies are relevant.
Let's see, I could use any browser or search engine or media player or OS I wanted.
No, for a long time if you used something other than IE, you would get an incorrectly rendered page because of IE having a huge chunk of the marketshare of browsers and thats what people used to only code for. Sure, you could use any search engine you wanted because of two main things A) The learning curve for a search engine is nearly non existent, if you can use MSN you can use Google, Yahoo, Ask, Bing, Live Search, etc. and B) it takes less than 2 minutes to change the homepage on nearly every modern browser. But lets say you wanted to use any media player, too bad you won't be playing any WMAs unless you want to fork out for a patent license or break the DMCA by reverse engineering your own codecs. As for your own OS, how are you going to return the Windows license you unwillingly paid for? Sure, there are ways, but its not as simple as going into your local Best Buy and coming out with a $50 in your hand.
If the USA had A) No software patents, B) No DMCA and C) mandates that all government files/programs must use an open standard with an open implementation we would have no MS monopoly. However we do have software patents to the point where they can sue a GPS manufacturer for using perhaps the most basic filesystem in order to maintain compatibility with MS's own OS (want to use something patent free? Too bad the Ext drivers won't work in Vista due to changes by MS). We have the DMCA which won't let you hardly reverse engineer anything even for non-commercial use, and we have a government that still could require you to use proprietary technologies to do things like file tax returns.
Slow down a bit. They're being investigated, not prosecuted. Even if they get brought to court and convicted of some antitrust charge, history has shown us the the punishments directed at corporations are inconsequential.
I'll stop worrying about companies getting too big when I stop hearing about how companies are "Too big to fail." Or when they aren't big enough to put serious economic pressure on other people/businesses. Or when they aren't big enough to be able to legally harass people despite having a flimsy case. Or when common people are able to routinely exact damages from them.
Until then, I'm perfectly happy with society telling companies that they are too big and need to limit their scope. Large businesses have disproportionate power over me. Even more so if there are only a few options. I don't like being coerced, whether its by private companies or governments.
The government is behind all of those problems: "Too big to fail", laws favoring business over individuals, and persecution of successful businesses.
You are taking a "I'm fine with it until it changes" stance - but how does that attitude help anything? You are not even identifying the source of the problem, which is the power that the government wields over individuals and businesses.
Once you have named this source, you can fight against it, explicitly, instead of taking an "I'm fine with it until it (magi
It is, is it? You don't really offer any proof to that effect. Companies are perfectly able to grow very large without government assistance, and once they have disproportionate resources (economy, manpower, social influence), its a simple matter to utilize those resources to coerce people. Government is certainly part of the problem, and is certainly corruptible. But government is, in theory, the people working together to certain ends, and is, paradoxically, the best way for us to deal with entities t
So you're saying that companies must operate under the same principles as public schools where the stupidest kid sets the pace for everyone else? That's brilliant. I was under the impression that the whole notion of antitrust was participating in anti-competitive behaviors not out-competing others.
What has Google done to prevent Yahoo, Microsoft, or anyone else for that matter to secure a similar agreement with copyright holders of books so that they can create a competitor product? Shall we next go afte
Yet another case of punishing business for success. Alan Greenspan had it right back in 1966 when he wrote this memo on anti-trust legislation [archive.org]:
... The world of antitrust is reminiscent of Alice's Wonderland: everything seemingly is, yet apparently isn't, simultaneously. It is a world in which competition is lauded as the basic axiom and guiding principle, yet "too much" competition is condemned as "cutthroat." It is a world in which actions designed to limit competition are branded as criminal when taken by businessmen, yet praised as "enlightened" when initiated by the government. It is a world in which the law is so vague that businessmen have no way of knowing whether specific actions will be declared illegal until they hear the judge's verdict -- after the fact. ...
I don't know why you're modded flame-bait. Greenspan was completely wrong on the banking industry and the economy, even admitting so himself. Is there any evidence that his opinion is worthwhile, or that following his suggestions would be prudent? Because it sure as hell isn't working out so well for us right now.
I agree with you on that - businesses that fail should be left to be liquidised, just as individuals should rely on private charity. It's never right to force one group of people to pay for the decisions of another group.
Greenspan is pretty damned smart - but he isn't quite as smart as he thinks he is.
As already has been noted in this thread, any company that grows so large that it's failure threatens the economic well being of the nation, something is SERIOUSLY wrong. Getting away from Wall Street, GM and Chrysler should never have made all the "acquisitions" they have made in the last 4 or maybe even 5 decades. The economic well being of this nation certainly didn't benefit from it.
Can someone please post information that relates to what Google is actually doing in the first place? I'm sure I could google it, but it would be nice to see people making posts on slashdot where the subject at hand is sufficiently described or referenced.
Ok, basically due to the USA having a screwed up copyright system, Google got the exclusive rights to a ton of books with questionable copyright status for them to search/digitize. Because of this a bunch of other companies cried foul and now the people who got us in this screwed up copyright mess and gave Google all these rights is investigating them and costing us even more money then if we would do the sane thing and reform copyright laws.
Interesting... If you don't mind, I have one more question...
Who was it that gave all of this to Google? Why was this not a problem until google got it? Shouldn't they be investigating the prior owners of this 'bundle'?
and lastly.. WTF!? This sounds like a big waste of tax dollars.
They are doing this because: If you want a book with questionable copyright status, YOU HAVE TO GO TO GOOGLE, no one but google has the power to deal with that type of book. How would this sound: You want a OS, you HAVE to go to Microsoft. You want a PC, you HAVE to go to Dell. You want to eat, You HAVE to get your food from the Government. You want to sleep, you HAVE to sleep on a bad from Acme.
First let me say, don't ever trust the government...but when you have a very large company and a deal that is being called questionable by some. Isn't this what the DOJ is supposed to do, investigate and see if there is any merit to the complaints?
back at the time ? in the last 8 years, microsoft got major fines from regulators and antitrust institutions around the world for anticompetitive practices, including European Union. yet, doj doesnt do any serious shit about microsoft. what gives ?
Would a crack addicted cop bust their crack dealer? I don't think so. The US government is "addicted" to using MS products even when there are free alternatives available (and something tells me that they can hire 30 guys cheaper to patch OOo to make it work like they want it to than buying MS office licenses). Europe is much less addicted to MS and their anti-trust suits seem to have little basis (just look at Intel which got hit with suits even though there are many alternatives such as AMD and VIA for x86 compatible and entire markets of other architectures such as PPC, ARM, etc.) and seem to think that no company should have more than 50% marketshare for any reason.
Microsoft contributes more to the Democrats than they do to the Republicans. Last year, it was nearly 3:1. OpenSecrets does show there was a time when Microsoft donated more to the Republicans, but there was never a time when Microsoft was both a top Republican contributor and gave very little mon
Over the years, Microsoft has proven to be particulary inept at getting any traction with their search business. In January 2008, Microsoft made an unsolicited bid to purchase Yahoo. Their efforts were frustrated when Google came to Yahoo's rescue. To get their revenge Microsoft mobilized their army of lobbyists in a Plot to Kill Google [wired.com]. Microsoft persuaded other companies and trade groups to lend support to their FUD campaign against their arch enemy. You will recall that the powerful American Corn Growers Association was among them - this same organization who's members get billions in subsidies to produce environmentally unfriendly ethanol from corn.
An article [nytimes.com] in the New York Times details Google's public-relations offensive to counteract the Microsoft generated FUD.
The Times articles states about Google: "regulators are intensely scrutinizing its every move, as they once did with... Microsoft. (My bold)
Why is it - "as they once did with Microsoft"? Microsoft never changed the behaviour that lead to civil actions filed against Microsoft [wikipedia.org] in May of 1998 by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and 20 U.S. states.
They have made a big mistake. The DOJ is after the wrong company! With a new administartion in place, their first priority should be to get Microsoft under control. The EU has really shown the world the the US DOJ has been asleep on its watch. If the DOJ woke up and stepped up to its long neglected responsibilities, it would be the USA raking in the billions in fines it will take to get Microsoft to behave itself, instead of the EU. Why in the world are they going after Google at this time?
Google has been a shining example of how a good corporate citizen should behave, and Microsoft should be encouraged to emulate Google's example. Google doesn't lock people into its software or services. Any time you want you can use another search engine or pick up your Google docs and walk away. If there are some justifiable concerns about Google, I suggest that the DOJ first take care of elephant in the room - Microsoft - before turning to Google. It is just so disheartening to see the good guys getting DOJ's attention while the bad guy slips away. Microsoft, you hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from Google's eye.
PS: I couldn't have written this short essay without Google there by my side the whole time as a friend to help me with the research.
Another way of looking at it is that the Yahoo! board completely screwed the pooch when they turned down the offer. Yahoo! currently has a market cap of $21 billion, just under 47% of the $44.6 billion that Microsoft offered for the company. Even if the deal had been entirely for Microsoft stock (much of it was for cash), Yahoo! shareholders would have something like 75 cents on the dollar today, instead of the 47 cents the board so gracefully awarded them.
Microsoft was already brought to court over antitrust matters, lost, and was fined. Then the Bush administration basically gave them a pass. I don't think we can drag them to court again, unless they do something significantly new.
Another thought: I'm not sure if the ISO/DOCX/ODF fiasco counts. I wish that it was looked into by the correct anti-trust officials, but I don't really know if that sort of thing breaks any laws.
On the other hand, I'm not sure if I'd agree that Google has been the shining corporate citizen that you paint them to be. They have done some questionable things (privacy issues with StreetView, China dealings, etc).
Investigation isn't the same as taking them to court. Maybe the investigations will turn up nothing, coincidentally at the same time as Google gives a nice campaign donation some prominent Democrats.
An interesting thing I find here so far, though, is that there's so many people decrying the antitrust investigation of Google for being "too successful" but going on about how Microsoft should go under an antitrust investigation for being...too successful.
If that's what you "find", then you're not doing an honest [everything2.com] job [slashdot.org] of [groklaw.net] looking [youtube.com].
I can't believe that anyone in the DOJ is stupid enough to believe that Google taking the initiative to provide orphaned works to the public constitutes some sort of monopoly. The original work must still exist somewhere in print. It's not like they're engaging in Fahrenheit 451-style tactics to control all knowledge. Furthermore, making a settlement to get rid of a nuissance lawsuit doesn't represent an admission of wrongdoing. It's not like the idea of mass book scanning and indexing was an original idea of Google's that they have some exclusivity over. If anyone want's to engage in their own mission to do so they can. In fact there were academic projects to do just that before Google came along with their idea of how to do things. Google worked with them to help develop better technology to improve the throughput over existing scanner systems. The whole history of the books project [google.com] is available for anyone to peruse if they are interested. I don't see how anyone can construe the actions described therein as monopolistic.
The only thing that's questionable is how far they're stretching the fair use principle in what they're doing. A strict interpretation of the law suggests that any complete duplication of a protected work constitutes infringement even if it is kept in private with only excerpts revealed to the public. Considering that the complaint centers around orphaned works still under copyright but with no one making a claim to them it isn't clear who the potentially damaged party is in this case. If someone wanted to acquire an orphaned work in its original form how would they do it? Resale of existing copies doesn't deprive the copyright holder of any income. If the publishing industry is wringing their hands over the inability to contact the copyright holder then they obviously can't be producing new copies of these works. So where is the damage?
What's wrong is that it is saddeningly easy for MS to use it's network of lobbyists to buy their own special government services when they need them. What you have is a publishing industry that is scared of being obsoleted like the buggy whip manufacturers. MS loves to take advantage of organizations like this and use them to do their bidding such as how they used SCO to spread FUD on the use of Linux. A previous poster had it right when they surmised that this is payback for Google's interference in the attempted Yahoo buyout.
Finally, some hope (Score:5, Insightful)
The move is the strongest sign yet that the DOJ may block the settlement, which critics claim would grant Google (GOOG) a monopoly on orphaned works-copyrighted texts without an identifiable copyright holder.
Heh, really? Maybe if there was some copyright reform no deal would be necessary. Maybe if copyright was an opt-in system, publishers could publish out of print books without having to worry about being sued by an absentee copyright holder.
Re:Finally, some hope (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Finally, some hope (Score:4, Interesting)
That sort of non-copyright system would mean that anyone could block the revenue from any sort of creative work by simply making it available non-commercially. In other words, posting it on a P2P network would be legal, downloading it would be legal and nothing could be done to stop it.
That would mean I would never have to pay for a movie ever again, and there would be no legal recourse. It would mean that nobody would ever have to pay for software ever again, because it would all be free.
Oh, except for stupid people that would not know how to use P2P for downloading. They would have to pay. Too bad for them.
I agree, it would be nice, except for anyone that is paid for software today. Or movies. Or music. Or books. I guess it would be great if you work in a WalMart, because you could now afford all that stuff. My employees would have to join you at WalMart.
Parent
Re:Finally, some hope (Score:4, Informative)
The way it currently is, I can get a better experience downloading a less-than-DVD quality movie then going to the movie theater.
Why would you download it first, if you're going to the theater regardless? Wouldn't it make more sense to download it while you're at the theater?
Okay, okay, sorry, but that sentence is a textbook example of why you should care about the difference between "then" and "than". I beg your forgiveness of my little compulsions.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Finally, some hope (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the "monopoly" in question is called "copyright". If companies are worried about the monopoly of orphan works, the answer is easy. Orphan works should fall into the public domain.
Parent
I'm ok with this, as long as..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm ok with this, as long as they investigate the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers as well.
Nah ... all those old-line organizations seem to keep getting a free pass from any investigation. My guess is that they've been greasing the palms of numerous public officials for so long that to investigate them would air way too much dirty laundry. So the Feds pay them no attention, even though they're as dirty as the RIAA in their own way and just as deserving of investigation.
Serves you right! (Score:5, Insightful)
Stupid companies.. Stop getting too big! Stop making so much money! Stop being so much better than your competition that everyone only uses your product. Being competitive means allowing the other guys to catch up! It also means you can't branch out too much..so keep your focus narrow.
Anyone else think this is a little over zealous?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yup. I also think the shit they pulled against MS was overzealous.
Re:Serves you right! (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is simply good at what it does so people keep coming back. MS simply forces people to use them.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Theres a big difference between MS and Google.
No - there really isn't - not in a fundamental sense.
Both companies make voluntary deals with everyone involved, to mutual advantage. Both companies make products that people like and want, and people are willing and glad to pay for them. Both companies provide technologies that help their customers make a lot of money, using them.
As long as companies are dealing with everyone voluntarily, the government should not be involved. Only when a business violates an invidual's rights through force or fraud sho
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
As long as companies are dealing with everyone voluntarily, the government should not be involved. Only when a business violates an invidual's rights through force or fraud should the government get involved.
That would be true, but the government uses a lot of MS software. By keeping the specs of a bunch of things closed or by not adhering to standards, they end up costing us, the taxpayers more in the long run. By locking the government into proprietary technologies that they are the only ones who can have a 100% guarantee they are rendering the document "correctly" the government will keep buying into them. Its effectively the same as having a public works bid but only allowing one company to bid.
Anti-trust is based on the altruist idea that the more successful you are - (aka "selfish") - the more evil you are, and the evil successful need to be brought down to favor the less successful, or failures. This also happens to be the moral underpinning for bailouts, welfare, "soak the rich", government healthcare, and many more.
However,
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
LOL, please give us a scripture reference for that ludicrous statement. I think you're talking about socialism.
Here's a pretty good place to start [acts17-11.com]. Particularly Jesus' speech in Mark. But please don't think I'm endorsing this stuff; I don't agree that the opinions of invisible fairies are relevant.
Re:Serves you right! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see, I could use any browser or search engine or media player or OS I wanted.
No, for a long time if you used something other than IE, you would get an incorrectly rendered page because of IE having a huge chunk of the marketshare of browsers and thats what people used to only code for. Sure, you could use any search engine you wanted because of two main things A) The learning curve for a search engine is nearly non existent, if you can use MSN you can use Google, Yahoo, Ask, Bing, Live Search, etc. and B) it takes less than 2 minutes to change the homepage on nearly every modern browser. But lets say you wanted to use any media player, too bad you won't be playing any WMAs unless you want to fork out for a patent license or break the DMCA by reverse engineering your own codecs. As for your own OS, how are you going to return the Windows license you unwillingly paid for? Sure, there are ways, but its not as simple as going into your local Best Buy and coming out with a $50 in your hand.
If the USA had A) No software patents, B) No DMCA and C) mandates that all government files/programs must use an open standard with an open implementation we would have no MS monopoly. However we do have software patents to the point where they can sue a GPS manufacturer for using perhaps the most basic filesystem in order to maintain compatibility with MS's own OS (want to use something patent free? Too bad the Ext drivers won't work in Vista due to changes by MS). We have the DMCA which won't let you hardly reverse engineer anything even for non-commercial use, and we have a government that still could require you to use proprietary technologies to do things like file tax returns.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
yes.
sounds just like the EU and Intel:
"No company should have over a 50% market share for any reason"
Re:Serves you right! (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Serves you right! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Serves you right! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll stop worrying about companies getting too big when I stop hearing about how companies are "Too big to fail." Or when they aren't big enough to put serious economic pressure on other people/businesses. Or when they aren't big enough to be able to legally harass people despite having a flimsy case. Or when common people are able to routinely exact damages from them.
Until then, I'm perfectly happy with society telling companies that they are too big and need to limit their scope. Large businesses have disproportionate power over me. Even more so if there are only a few options. I don't like being coerced, whether its by private companies or governments.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The government is behind all of those problems: "Too big to fail", laws favoring business over individuals, and persecution of successful businesses.
You are taking a "I'm fine with it until it changes" stance - but how does that attitude help anything? You are not even identifying the source of the problem, which is the power that the government wields over individuals and businesses.
Once you have named this source, you can fight against it, explicitly, instead of taking an "I'm fine with it until it (magi
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It is, is it? You don't really offer any proof to that effect. Companies are perfectly able to grow very large without government assistance, and once they have disproportionate resources (economy, manpower, social influence), its a simple matter to utilize those resources to coerce people. Government is certainly part of the problem, and is certainly corruptible. But government is, in theory, the people working together to certain ends, and is, paradoxically, the best way for us to deal with entities t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So you're saying that companies must operate under the same principles as public schools where the stupidest kid sets the pace for everyone else? That's brilliant. I was under the impression that the whole notion of antitrust was participating in anti-competitive behaviors not out-competing others.
What has Google done to prevent Yahoo, Microsoft, or anyone else for that matter to secure a similar agreement with copyright holders of books so that they can create a competitor product? Shall we next go afte
Anti-trust punishes success (Score:5, Informative)
Yet another case of punishing business for success. Alan Greenspan had it right back in 1966 when he wrote this memo on anti-trust legislation [archive.org]:
Re:Anti-trust punishes success (Score:4, Insightful)
Why should we listen to anything Alan Greenspan has to say?
Parent
Re:Anti-trust punishes success (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Actually yes; Greenspan abandoned his hard-core laissez-faire philosophy when he began working for the Government.
The linked memo was written when he was still a friend of Rand's, and quite opposed to Government intervention in business or finance in any way.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I prefer that to what we've seen lately, which is rewarding companies for failures of sufficient global impact.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with you on that - businesses that fail should be left to be liquidised, just as individuals should rely on private charity. It's never right to force one group of people to pay for the decisions of another group.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Greenspan is pretty damned smart - but he isn't quite as smart as he thinks he is.
As already has been noted in this thread, any company that grows so large that it's failure threatens the economic well being of the nation, something is SERIOUSLY wrong. Getting away from Wall Street, GM and Chrysler should never have made all the "acquisitions" they have made in the last 4 or maybe even 5 decades. The economic well being of this nation certainly didn't benefit from it.
That said - DOJ may very well decide t
Need Some info.. (Score:2)
Can someone please post information that relates to what Google is actually doing in the first place? I'm sure I could google it, but it would be nice to see people making posts on slashdot where the subject at hand is sufficiently described or referenced.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting... If you don't mind, I have one more question...
Who was it that gave all of this to Google? Why was this not a problem until google got it? Shouldn't they be investigating the prior owners of this 'bundle'?
and lastly.. WTF!? This sounds like a big waste of tax dollars.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
They are doing this because:
If you want a book with questionable copyright status, YOU HAVE TO GO TO GOOGLE, no one but google has the power to deal with that type of book. How would this sound: You want a OS, you HAVE to go to Microsoft. You want a PC, you HAVE to go to Dell. You want to eat, You HAVE to get your food from the Government. You want to sleep, you HAVE to sleep on a bad from Acme.
Re: (Score:2)
Its under related stories, directly below the summary. Learn to use Slashdot damn it!
Sorry I dropped my pitchfork (Score:2, Insightful)
First let me say, don't ever trust the government...but when you have a very large company and a deal that is being called questionable by some. Isn't this what the DOJ is supposed to do, investigate and see if there is any merit to the complaints?
Why didnt they investigate microsoft properly (Score:3, Insightful)
back at the time ? in the last 8 years, microsoft got major fines from regulators and antitrust institutions around the world for anticompetitive practices, including European Union. yet, doj doesnt do any serious shit about microsoft. what gives ?
Re:Why didnt they investigate microsoft properly (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.campaignmoney.com/microsoft.asp [campaignmoney.com]
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=d000000115 [opensecrets.org]
http://blog.seattlepi.com/print.asp?entryID=136352 [seattlepi.com] (this one only shows employee contributions, but it compares )
Microsoft contributes more to the Democrats than they do to the Republicans. Last year, it was nearly 3:1. OpenSecrets does show there was a time when Microsoft donated more to the Republicans, but there was never a time when Microsoft was both a top Republican contributor and gave very little mon
The DOJ is after the wrong company! (Score:5, Insightful)
Over the years, Microsoft has proven to be particulary inept at getting any traction with their search business. In January 2008, Microsoft made an unsolicited bid to purchase Yahoo. Their efforts were frustrated when Google came to Yahoo's rescue. To get their revenge Microsoft mobilized their army of lobbyists in a Plot to Kill Google [wired.com]. Microsoft persuaded other companies and trade groups to lend support to their FUD campaign against their arch enemy. You will recall that the powerful American Corn Growers Association was among them - this same organization who's members get billions in subsidies to produce environmentally unfriendly ethanol from corn.
An article [nytimes.com] in the New York Times details Google's public-relations offensive to counteract the Microsoft generated FUD.
The Times articles states about Google: "regulators are intensely scrutinizing its every move, as they once did with ... Microsoft. (My bold)
Why is it - "as they once did with Microsoft"? Microsoft never changed the behaviour that lead to civil actions filed against Microsoft [wikipedia.org] in May of 1998 by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and 20 U.S. states.
They have made a big mistake. The DOJ is after the wrong company! With a new administartion in place, their first priority should be to get Microsoft under control. The EU has really shown the world the the US DOJ has been asleep on its watch. If the DOJ woke up and stepped up to its long neglected responsibilities, it would be the USA raking in the billions in fines it will take to get Microsoft to behave itself, instead of the EU. Why in the world are they going after Google at this time?
Google has been a shining example of how a good corporate citizen should behave, and Microsoft should be encouraged to emulate Google's example. Google doesn't lock people into its software or services. Any time you want you can use another search engine or pick up your Google docs and walk away. If there are some justifiable concerns about Google, I suggest that the DOJ first take care of elephant in the room - Microsoft - before turning to Google. It is just so disheartening to see the good guys getting DOJ's attention while the bad guy slips away. Microsoft, you hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from Google's eye.
PS: I couldn't have written this short essay without Google there by my side the whole time as a friend to help me with the research.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Another way of looking at it is that the Yahoo! board completely screwed the pooch when they turned down the offer. Yahoo! currently has a market cap of $21 billion, just under 47% of the $44.6 billion that Microsoft offered for the company. Even if the deal had been entirely for Microsoft stock (much of it was for cash), Yahoo! shareholders would have something like 75 cents on the dollar today, instead of the 47 cents the board so gracefully awarded them.
Re:The DOJ is after the wrong company! (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft was already brought to court over antitrust matters, lost, and was fined. Then the Bush administration basically gave them a pass. I don't think we can drag them to court again, unless they do something significantly new.
Another thought: I'm not sure if the ISO/DOCX/ODF fiasco counts. I wish that it was looked into by the correct anti-trust officials, but I don't really know if that sort of thing breaks any laws.
On the other hand, I'm not sure if I'd agree that Google has been the shining corporate citizen that you paint them to be. They have done some questionable things (privacy issues with StreetView, China dealings, etc).
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Wait a minute.... (Score:2, Flamebait)
....weren't they big Obama supporters? How's that workin' out for y'all, now?
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Investigation isn't the same as taking them to court. Maybe the investigations will turn up nothing, coincidentally at the same time as Google gives a nice campaign donation some prominent Democrats.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
An interesting thing I find here so far, though, is that there's so many people decrying the antitrust investigation of Google for being "too successful" but going on about how Microsoft should go under an antitrust investigation for being...too successful.
If that's what you "find", then you're not doing an honest [everything2.com] job [slashdot.org] of [groklaw.net] looking [youtube.com].
why not comcast and AT&T? (Score:4, Insightful)
they're monopolies also.
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What kind of idiots in the DOJ? (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't believe that anyone in the DOJ is stupid enough to believe that Google taking the initiative to provide orphaned works to the public constitutes some sort of monopoly. The original work must still exist somewhere in print. It's not like they're engaging in Fahrenheit 451-style tactics to control all knowledge. Furthermore, making a settlement to get rid of a nuissance lawsuit doesn't represent an admission of wrongdoing. It's not like the idea of mass book scanning and indexing was an original idea of Google's that they have some exclusivity over. If anyone want's to engage in their own mission to do so they can. In fact there were academic projects to do just that before Google came along with their idea of how to do things. Google worked with them to help develop better technology to improve the throughput over existing scanner systems. The whole history of the books project [google.com] is available for anyone to peruse if they are interested. I don't see how anyone can construe the actions described therein as monopolistic.
The only thing that's questionable is how far they're stretching the fair use principle in what they're doing. A strict interpretation of the law suggests that any complete duplication of a protected work constitutes infringement even if it is kept in private with only excerpts revealed to the public. Considering that the complaint centers around orphaned works still under copyright but with no one making a claim to them it isn't clear who the potentially damaged party is in this case. If someone wanted to acquire an orphaned work in its original form how would they do it? Resale of existing copies doesn't deprive the copyright holder of any income. If the publishing industry is wringing their hands over the inability to contact the copyright holder then they obviously can't be producing new copies of these works. So where is the damage?
What's wrong is that it is saddeningly easy for MS to use it's network of lobbyists to buy their own special government services when they need them. What you have is a publishing industry that is scared of being obsoleted like the buggy whip manufacturers. MS loves to take advantage of organizations like this and use them to do their bidding such as how they used SCO to spread FUD on the use of Linux. A previous poster had it right when they surmised that this is payback for Google's interference in the attempted Yahoo buyout.
deny what ? (Score:2)
this is a motion that was put underway during last vestiges of bush admn. who were very chummy with microsoft.
Re:So much for "do no evil" (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe the DOJ is investigating because Google has a monopoly on not doing evil.
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