The bid by the world's largest search engine Google to get digital rights to millions of hard-to-find books has run into legal hurdles with the US Justice department saying it threatens to undermine copyright laws.
The Department has opposed a revised legal settlement reached between Google and the American authors and publishers that would allow it to scan and sell millions of books online.
In an opinion filed in a New York Federal Court yesterday, the Justice department said the amended settlement raises anti-trust concerns.
"The amended settlement agreement suffers from the same core problem as the original agreement, it is an attempt to use the class action mechanism to implement forward-looking business arrangements that go far beyond the dispute before the court in this litigation," the Department of Justice said in its statement in the court.
The government action is a major set-back to Google's efforts to win approval of a 15-month old legal settlement that would make it a store house for millions of books.
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The Justice Department's advise to the court comes even as consumer watchdogs, literary agents, foreign governments and state governments in US have already filed objections before a US district judge to reject the agreement.
Judge Denny Chin is to hold a hearing on February 18 to consider approving the class action settlement.