US to File Concerns Over Google Book Pact

The Justice Department is expected to outline a range of concerns it has about a settlement that Google struck with authors and publishers over the rights to distribute digital copies of certain works. Apparently, the Justice Department will submit those concerns in a filing to the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York, which must decide whether to approve agreement, the people said. The filing is likely to discuss the department's concern that parts of the agreement may hurt the interests of other parties, such as Google's potential competitors in the nascent digital-book market. For example, the Justice Department is concerned that one of the agreement's features -- a "registry" that governs aspects of the agreement such as some pricing and payment distributions -- could allow publishers to set prohibitively high prices for their works.