Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo have joined an alliance in a bid to fight Google over the search giant's plans to commercialize a huge digital library of books.

The Open Book Alliance is a distinct organization from the Open Content Alliance, a group with similar goals created by Yahoo, the Internet Archive, and many universities.

In their first united response to the growing force of Google, they want to challenge Google's 2005 class-action settlement with authors and publishers.

In October last year, Google reached a settlement with the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers on a copyright infringement lawsuit that they filed in 2005 over Google's plan to scan millions of books and put them online.

As part of the settlement, Google agreed to establish an independent Book Rights Registry, which will provide revenue from sales and advertising to authors and publishers who agree to digitize their books.

The settlement, which Google has agreed to pay $125 million, is still waiting for approval but is already facing anti-trust scrutiny from the Justice Department and awaiting court approval.

A fairness hearing to consider approval of the settlement is scheduled for October 7. The deadline for objections to the settlement is September 4.

The Internet Archive, which is spearheading the anti-settlement effort, is also against Google.

Its founder, Brewster Kahle, told the BBC: Google is trying to monopolize the library system. If this deal goes ahead, they're making a real shot at being 'the' library and the only library.

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