A New York court ruled against the deal to negotiate a six-year-old class action suit filed by the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers on claims of copyright infringement.

In trying to secure access to books’ copyright rights, the court felt that the deal simply went too far in what it allowed Google. It further stressed that many owners would be unable to claim royalties when their books were sold.

The Judge really stressed the competitive advantage that the deal would allow Google, who has already scanned approximately 15 million books for the company’s eBooks platform.

Let’s consider this competitive advantage. Would pricing of the books be standard, given the individual is downloading a .pdf file? Furthermore, it will be interesting to see what kind of people end up using Google’s eBooks platform, as one of its benefits is that it offers books that are often hard to find. This wouldn’t be good for Amazon.

With the increasing popularity of the iPad or other touch-based tablet PCs, Google could significantly control the market for books. This would be tough on bookstores, though it seems unlikely that many would abandon print altogether due to the discomfort of reading an entire novel on a computer screen.