News - Google books deal to be investigated

[HEXUS]

The US Department of Justice has opened an antitrust investigation into the settlement with publishers.

Read more.

[staffsMike]

Google's main defence, apart from the settlement, seems to be that there's nothing stopping another company scanning a ton of books and making them available online.

Glad that came up because that's what I was thinking as I read through. How is it a monopoly on books anymore than google being popular would be a monopoly on search engines?

Maybe I'm over simplifying or missing the point here but I really can't see the problem. If a book doesn't have a copyright (or it can't be found) then my understanding is it can be copied... if that wasn't the case what is the point of having copyright laws in the first place?