Amazon CEO Knocks Google Books Settlement

One publishing giant has criticized another in the race for 21st Century readers. In a recent New York City conference, Wired’s Steven Levy interviewed Amazon.com, Inc. CEO Jeff Bezos, eliciting some juicy comments about Google and the future of the book.

Google and the Authors Guild are working to finalize a controversial settlement to the Guild’s lawsuit over Google’s efforts to scan millions of pages of books into an online database. According to the Wall Street Journal, Bezos remained coy about his specific criticisms of Google and the company’s massive effort to digitize libraries.

Here’s the most dramatic quote about the Google settlement: “It doesn’t seem right that you should do something–kind of get a prize for violating a large series of copyrights … You just can’t believe that’s the way it actually works.” (Via Publishers Weekly)

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