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Top U.S. consumer electronics chain Best Buy Co. reported a lower-than-expected quarterly profit Tuesday as weakness in the entertainment software and appliance categories offset market share gains.

The retailer, which has steadily gained market share after main rival Circuit City closed its doors, said net profit fell to $158 million, or 37 cents a share, in the second quarter that ended on Aug. 29, from $202 million, or 48 cents a share, a year earlier.

Excluding a tax impact, the profit was 40 cents a share, a penny below analysts’ average forecast of 41 cents a share free credit report without a credit card.

Best Buy (BBY, Fortune 500), whose total revenue rose 12% to $11 billion in the quarter, raised its outlook for the fiscal year.

The retailer’s stock was down 3.8% at $38.86 a share in trading before the opening bell. 

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Just a month after taking office, President Obama asked Congress to move fast to reform the "outdated" system of financial oversight and install "tough, new common-sense rules of the road" for Wall Street.

Now, as Obama gave a major address on Monday marking the one-year anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse, things haven’t advanced very far.

Obama urged Congress to pass his proposed reforms.

"We have to live up to our responsibilities on financial reform," he said. "There will be those who argue we should do less or nothing at all. But to them I’d say only this: Do you believe that the absence of sound regulation one year ago was good for the financial system? Do you believe the resulting decline in markets and wealth and employment was good for the economy? Or the American people?"

Congress has moved only sluggishly on a set of changes that are more modest than the overhaul originally envisioned. It is likely that the patchwork system of regulatory agencies will remain mostly intact.

Meanwhile, traders continue to buy and sell unregulated and complex financial products, like those sold by bailed out insurance giant AIG (AIG, Fortune 500).

None of the administration proposals under consideration would eliminate the conflicts that can occur when bond issuers pay credit rating agencies to evaluate their financial products.

Big Wall Street pay checks might get more thorough scrutiny, but they won’t be subject to strict limits.

One of the most far-reaching proposals — the creation of an agency to regulate consumer financial products like mortgages and credit cards — has faced a tough beating by industry lobbyists. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has pledged another $2 million, and probably more, to a campaign to kill it.

And every day that the economy improves and the health care fight sucks up more congressional energy, momentum to overhaul the financial system is lost.

"The clock is ticking and we’re at a cross roads," said Travis Plunkett,chief lobbyist for the Consumer Federation of America. "If we don’t see a substantial move this fall, financial reform may wither on the vine."

What’s been done so far?

The biggest push happened this spring, when Congress passed changes to credit card laws aimed at helping consumers buried in debt.

However, the Federal Reserve was already moving to implement many of the same changes later next year, and many card issuers have raced to hike rates ahead of the new laws that make such hikes tougher.

The House has logged the most progress. On July 31, it voted 237-185 for a bill that gives shareholders the chance to use nonbinding votes to speak their minds on executive pay.

The executive compensation bill also empowers regulators to create new rules to limit bonuses tied to risk-taking at firms with more than $1 billion in assets. But it doesn’t impose any hard caps like those being called for in Europe.

The House is expected to begin voting on other reforms in late September or October, starting with a bill to create the new consumer watchdog agency.

The Senate is a different story. It hasn’t passed anything other than the credit card bill.

Staffers for the leaders of the Senate Banking Committee worked throughout the summer on an all-encompassing financial reform bill. Congressional watchers say it could be released later this month.

But the health care debate could push negotiations over the most complex financial proposals to next year.

"When you’re dealing with the future of the charters and the bank regulatory system … it’s all very complicated and it’s going to take a very long time," said Washington policy analyst Brian Gardner of investment firm Keefe Bruyette & Woods.

Status of key proposals

Regulating consumer products: The first and biggest fight will be over the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

The agency would be empowered to examine and subpoena information from banks. It would also create templates for basic financial products, such as fixed-rate, 30-year mortgages. More complicated mortgages would have to spell out how they differ from "plain-vanilla" financial products.

The industry opposes that level of oversight. While some agree on the need for more consumer protections, "the debate is how best to achieve it," said Scott Talbott of the Financial Services Roundtable, a lobbying group.

On the other side, consumer advocates don’t like one possible compromise — strengthening consumer protection departments at existing agencies.

Policing risk: Experts agree that Congress will likely give more power to existing regulators to prevent the biggest financial firms from over-borrowing or making other overly risky business moves.

On the table is a plan to grant more authority to the Federal Reserve, with some backstop help from other agencies.

But some key players, including Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. head Sheila Bair, have argued against making the Fed a super-regulator. They instead back a strong regulatory council with multiple agencies.

Many banks and financial institutions support the idea of a more unified system of oversight. But some analysts believe that such a change might not be the cure people hope for.

"I don’t know how much it’ll help," said Douglas Elliott, a former investment banker and now a fellow at the Brookings Institution. "It’s very hard to be the one that steps out in front and says I know what you’ve been saying, but we think you’re wrong and we’re not going to let you do it."

Winding down firms in trouble: There’s more agreement around the idea of giving the FDIC, which now has the job of taking over troubled banks, more power to do the same to big investment firms and insurers.

Still, the proposal is complicated. For one thing, most big firms have smaller subsidiaries, some of which are regulated by state regulators.

Former Fed Chair Paul Volcker and SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro have warned that instituting a powerful new "resolution authority" could have the unintended consequence of creating a safety net for big institutions that make bad decisions.

Derivatives: The Obama administration is proposing new rules for derivatives, which are financial products whose value is derived from something else, such as a stock or commodity.

The administration wants big firms that sell derivatives to meet new capital requirements. They also want derivatives to be traded on clearinghouses — markets that could add more transparency to the value of derivatives.

But the clearinghouses would only apply to the most common derivatives and leave more specialized derivatives mostly unregulated.

-CNN’s Ed Henry contributed to this report. 

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Lawmakers took the Securities and Exchange Commission to task Thursday for failing to prevent Bernard Madoff from perpetrating one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history.

"Because the SEC failed to do its job, Madoff stole $50 billion," said Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. "There can be no excuse for that colossal failure."

Dodd’s remarks came at the beginning of the committee’s second hearing to investigate the SEC’s shortcomings in the Madoff case and how to improve the agency’s performance in the future.

Madoff, 71, was convicted of operating a Ponzi scheme and defrauding thousands of investors. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 150 years in prison in June. Prosecutors have said it was the largest investor fraud ever committed by a single person.

The hearing comes one day after officials in Massachusetts released transcripts of a phone conversation in which Madoff lectured colleagues on how to avoid being scrutinized by the SEC.

Senators heard testimony from David Kotz, the SEC’s inspector general, whose office released a scathing report last week that said the commission overlooked "more than ample" evidence, including six complaints, that red-flagged the massive fraud.

The inspector general faults the SEC for a "culture" of discounting tips from outsiders such as Harry Markopolos, an investment analyst who repeatedly contacted the SEC with concerns about Madoff’s illegal activities.

Kotz said the SEC relied too heavily on junior staffers and examiners that lacked the specialized knowledge required to spot unconventional frauds. The agency also failed to independently verify Madoff’s statements and never took the necessary steps to determine if he was operating a Ponzi scheme, he said.

"Had these efforts been made with appropriate follow-up… the SEC could have uncovered the Ponzi scheme before Madoff confessed," Kotz testified.

Markopolos, who also testified Thursday, said he doesn’t believe the SEC was guilty of "criminal activity." But he criticized the agency for its lack of diligence, saying "the SEC staff was not capable of finding ice cream at a Dairy Queen."

John Walsh, director of the SEC’s office of compliance, acknowledged the criticisms and pledged to continue his efforts to improve the agency’s track record.

"We all sincerely regret that we did not detect the Madoff fraud," Walsh said. "We are working diligently to address the problems that contributed to this failure."

As in a classic Ponzi scheme, Madoff accepted funds from his investors and stole instead of investing it. He used fresh funds to make payments to other investors. The amount he stole, which is still being tallied, was likely in the billions of dollars.

The inspector general offered recommendations intended to improve the SEC’s ability to uncover future frauds and better police the financial markets.

Among those were increasing the agency’s resources and staffing levels, ensuring that investigators have adequate training to identify sophisticated new types of fraud and consulting with the private sector to stay current on complicated financial products.

"As our markets have evolved, the SEC has not kept pace," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. "Frankly, the SEC is out gunned."

Schumer said he will propose legislation to allow the SEC to keep all of the fees it collects from publicly traded companies, which it can then use to invest in technologies needed to monitor the markets.  

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My investments need to be a lot more diversified, I was told. Within a split of 55 percent stocks and 45 percent bonds, I was presented a list of 10 mutual funds and exchange-traded funds to buy (plus 23 others as alternatives).

I won’t buy any because the suggestions were based on faulty assumptions. But I appreciated the concept of building a broadly diversified portfolio consisting of different asset classes, including growth and value stocks of large and small U.S. companies, and stocks from foreign companies.

And I relished the idea of keeping costs down by focusing on index mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and low-cost actively managed funds with consistent performance.

I received these fund suggestions from Cake Financial, an online computer-driven mutual fund "engine" that analyzes your investments and suggests and monitors a low-cost diversified portfolio appropriate for your age. For $99.99 a year — there is a 30-day free trial — Cake Financial claims it can save investors many thousands of dollars in the long run by selecting lower-cost and less-risky funds. The site also offers a more basic investment tracking service for free and a fund-comparison service for $29.99 a year, also with a 30-day free trial.

In my case, the fund suggestions were based on the wrong assumption that all my money was in large-company stocks. That’s because Cake Financial can analyze only investments held in brokerage and fund accounts it can link to its site (for a list, to which customers can recommend additions, go https:// www.cakefinancial.com/help/linking-a-brokerage). More than half my assets are outside brokerage accounts.

For investors who have the bulk if not all their retirement savings — including 401(k)s — with brokerage and fund providers, this online fund "engine" can provide a useful service that will add to diversification and keep costs down credit reports free. The average Cake user is in his early 40s with about $150,000 to $200,000 mostly in mutual funds, said Steven Carpenter, the company’s founder and CEO.

Cake is not the only place you can get fund recommendations online. Several free sites run by investment advisers, such as www.fundadvice.com, list model portfolios consisting mostly of index and other low-cost funds. Of course, the people running these sites are trying to sign you up as a client. The sites of many fund companies provide solid advice on asset allocation and sometimes suggest certain funds or combinations of funds (naturally, the funds they sell). By contrast, Cake is an independent information and screening service that gives you fund choices from which to pick.

"We are not an adviser and we do not effect transactions," Carpenter said, but simply base fund suggestions on computer models that look for strong consistent performance and incorporate fund fees in their calculations.

"We show all the top funds for an asset class and sort them by fees," Carpenter said. "Where we feel we are better than an adviser is that we don’t have" any incentive to recommend one fund over another. A survey by Harris Interactive on behalf of Cake Financial found only 21 percent of Americans who use financial investment firms are confident the firms put customers’ best interest ahead of their own.

To be fair, many advisers who act in a fiduciary capacity focus only on what’s best for the client. Cake Financial does a bare-bones job in estimating how much money you need in retirement and is not a substitute for a trusted financial professional adviser.

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Delta Air Lines Inc. is considering making a cash infusion of a couple of hundred million dollars to aid struggling Japan Airlines Corp., a person briefed on the talks said Friday.

In exchange for the infusion, the person said the world’s biggest airline operator could get a stake in Japan Airlines, an expanded presence in Japan and access to the closest airport to the Tokyo business center.

The talks were in their preliminary stage, and it was unclear what form a partnership might take, said the person, who asked not to be identified.

Delta subsidiary Northwest Airlines has a history with Japan Airlines, having handled flight operations for the Japanese carrier in the early 1950s, according to JAL’s website.

A Delta spokesman declined to comment. A JAL spokesman said it was considering tie-ups with various potential partners.

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Don’t believe Lloyd Blankfein when he says he feels your bonus pain.

The Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) chief executive officer took aim Wednesday at the million-dollar bonuses paid last year by some of the firm’s rivals. Public anger in such cases is "understandable and appropriate," he told the audience at a banking conference in Germany.

Blankfein went on to outline the standards he believes should prevail on a cleaned-up Wall Street. Multiyear guaranteed employment contracts should be banned, he said, and executives should be obliged to hold equity awards until they retire.

But as sound as Goldman’s policies are, adopting them won’t change the equation that makes so many people squeamish: Players in the financial sector are reaping huge rewards — while taxpayers continue to bear much of the risk.

"The principles they’re talking about go mostly to the structure of pay," said Sarah Anderson, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington-based think tank. "There’s no real critique of the pay levels."

Consider the study released last week by the institute. It showed that the top 100 executives at the 20 biggest banks that received Troubled Asset Relief Program loans — firms such as Goldman, JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) and Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), which now owns Merrill Lynch — made an average of $13.8 million each last year.

Admittedly, that’s down from $19.1 million in 2007. The figure, derived from company proxy statements, covers salary, bonuses, stock awards and other compensation.

Even so, $13.8 million is a nice sum for executives whose companies, in many cases, wouldn’t have survived last fall’s financial apocalypse without taxpayer assistance free copy of my credit report.

At Goldman, Blankfein made $43 million last year, using the institute’s math — bringing his three-year take to $151 million.

To be sure, Blankfein turned down his bonus last year, citing the firm’s acceptance of federal support. And Goldman has surged back to profitability this year after a tough second half in 2008. The firm said in July it had already set aside $11 billion this year for employee pay.

But skeptics might point out that those gains have been built on the support provided, willingly or otherwise, by taxpayers — at a time when unemployment is approaching 10% and personal income has been falling.

Anderson notes that even beyond the $700 billion TARP program, the government has provided financial firms with assistance via expanded deposit insurance, federal guarantees of bond issues and extensive subsidies, via Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500) and Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500), for the mortgage market.

And while Goldman and other firms have made headlines by repaying TARP funds and repurchasing associated warrants, most of those other programs remain in force.

Though reform of pay practices was high on the agenda earlier this year, as the stock market fell to levels last seen in the mid-1990s, the subsequent recovery has pushed that discussion into the background for the time being.

"It has been a real eye opener to see how much this system is entrenched," Anderson said. "It goes to show you can’t rely on companies to do the right thing."  

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Stocks rallied Wednesday, with the Nasdaq and S&P 500 ending at 11-month highs as investors welcomed a Federal Reserve report that indicated the economy is stabilizing.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) gained 50 points, or 0.5%, ending just short of a 10-month high.

The S&P 500 (SPX) index gained 8 points, or 0.8%, ending the session at an 11-month high.

The Nasdaq composite (COMP) rose 22 points, or 1.1%, ending the session at the highest point since Oct. 1.

Stocks struggled in the first 30 minutes of trading and then made a move higher. Investors initially took a step back after the release of the Fed’s "Beige Book" survey of the economy, but then redoubled their efforts late in the session.

"It’s the combination of the weak dollar lifting a lot of companies with international operations and a lot of news coming out of all the techs," said Dave Rovelli, managing director of U.S. equity trading at Canaccord Adams.

A variety of heavily-weighted Dow components rose, including Boeing (BA, Fortune 500), 3M (MMM, Fortune 500), Caterpillar (CAT, Fortune 500), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ, Fortune 500), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, Fortune 500) and United Technologies (UTX, Fortune 500).

Citigroup’s annual tech conference, Apple’s afternoon media event and mid-quarter updates from Altera (ALTR) and Texas Instruments (TXN, Fortune 500) were among the tech events Rovelli cited.

With the S&P 500 up more than 50% off the March 9 lows, stocks are going to be facing some challenges on the technical side of trading going forward, Rovelli said, as the S&P 500 bats against the 1040 to 1045 level.

Beige Book: The Federal Reserve said reports from its 12 districts showed economic conditions continued to improve in July and August, although consumer spending remained weak. Most of the regions said that there was some improvement in the residential real estate market although home prices continued to slip.

Apple: CEO Steve Jobs delivered the keynote address at the company’s media event in the afternoon, making his first appearance at an Apple event in nearly a year. Jobs returned to work this summer after taking a medical leave for the first six months of the year.

Jobs announced a new version of iTunes. Apple also said the company’s 8 GB iPod Nano will include a built-in video camera and FM radio.

Earlier Wednesday, Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) cut prices on its line of iPods by as much as $120.

Shares closed 1% lower.

Currencies and commodities: The greenback held close to yearly lows versus the euro and Australian currency, and two-month lows versus the yen.

The weak dollar has boosted oil, gold and other dollar-traded commodity prices. Those prices have also been on the rise on bets of a global economy recovery.

U.S. light crude oil for October delivery rose 21 cents to settle at $71.31 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

COMEX gold for December delivery fell $2.70 to settle at $997.10 an ounce, after topping the key $1,000 level earlier in the session for the second day in a row.

Bonds: Treasury prices ended higher, erasing losses after Treasury saw solid demand for a $20 billion auction of ten-year notes. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note fell to 3.47% from 3.48% late Tuesday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.

On Thursday, Treasury auctions $12 billion in 30-year bonds.

McDonald’s: The fast-food chain said global sales at restaurants open a year or more rose 2.2% in August, the slowest growth in nearly a year. Weakness in Asia and a slowdown in the U.S. countered strength in Europe. Shares of McDonald’s (MCD, Fortune 500), a Dow component, slumped 2%.

Other company news: Biotech Vivus (VVUS) reported positive results from two late-stage studies of its experimental weight loss drug, Qnexa. Shares gained 71%.

World markets: Global markets were mixed. In Europe, London’s FTSE 100 crossed the 5,000 mark, while France’s CAC 40 and the German DAX gained at least 1%. Asian markets ended lower.

Market breadth was positive. On the New York Stock Exchange, winners topped losers seven to three on volume of 1.24 billion shares. On the Nasdaq, advancers beat decliners by over two to one on volume of 2.51 billion shares.

How does your portfolio look nearly one year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers? What investment choices hurt you or helped you the most? What strategy changes are you making for the future? Tell us your story. E-mail realstories@cnnmoney.com and your thoughts could be part of an upcoming story. For the CNNMoney.com Comment Policy, click here. 

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Oil prices Tuesday posted their biggest gain in almost three weeks as the dollar weakened and investors sought tangible commodities to hedge inflation.

U.S. crude for October delivery rose $3.08, or 4.5%, to $71.10 a barrel, the largest percentage increase since Aug. 19.

The gains came as the dollar slumped to its lowest level in almost a year against a basket of currencies and gold rallied above $1,000 an ounce, its highest since March 2008.

"Today’s move by gold above $1,000 probably triggered crude markets to rally, spurring inflation fears and causing traders to buy oil as a hedge against inflation," said analyst Eugen Weinberg at Commerzbank.

Global commodities, priced in dollars, tend to rise when the value of the U.S. currency falls.

"Nothing has really changed fundamentally," said trader Rob Montefusco at Sucden Financial. "It’s all technical levels blowing through as the dollar gets spanked against the euro and gold."

OPEC. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries meets in Vienna on Wednesday, with most analysts expecting OPEC, the source of more than a third of the world’s oil supply, to maintain its official price target of around $70.

Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said producers and consumers are happy with current oil prices, though he added world crude inventories appeared too high free credit report.

"Nobody expects anything from them," said Weinberg at Commerzbank. "There are some other issues; compliance, non-OPEC production, and huge ventures worldwide that might still have an impact, but otherwise nobody expects them to cut any more production."

Oil prices, which fell 6.5% last week, have been trading in a range between $65 and $75 a barrel since the start of August, with prices swinging on economic data as investors seek clues about the speed of a recovery from the recession.

Investors will be on watch for inventory data, delayed by a day this week due to Monday’s Labor Day holiday.

The American Petroleum Institute’s petroleum stocks report will be delayed one day to Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. ET and Energy Information Administration snapshot of crude oil, distillates and gasoline stocks will be pushed out to Thursday at 11 a.m. ET.

Traders will also keep an eye out as Tropical Storm Fred formed in the eastern Atlantic Ocean on Monday with top winds of 40 mph, but did not immediately threaten any land, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. 

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Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher on Thursday said the United States should have a "good snap-back" from recession in the final months of 2009, but that future growth could be a "slow crawl."

"You could have a stout third-quarter (GDP) number," Fisher told reporters after a speech at the University of California in Santa Barbara.

"It’s encouraging and helpful and hopeful that we have a good third quarter and fourth quarter. But what is the rate of growth after that? And how do we get back to creating jobs?"

Fisher said it was too early to guess at the timing or pace of interest rate moves once the Fed starts to reverse its extremely easy monetary policy — one that has left benchmark rates near zero since December 2008.

"You have to feel it. You have to walk through a river feeling the stones underneath your feet," he said. "We have have to be forceful, or we may have to be gradual. It depends on the circumstances."

Still, with price pressures tilted more toward deflation because of high unemployment and low capacity utilization in the U.S. economy, inflation should not be a problem for now, Fisher said.

No big inflation risk

The Fed is prepared to pull the trigger on a policy shift when the time is right, he added.

"If we conduct ourselves properly, I don’t think that inflation becomes a significant risk."

Many Fed watchers expect no move in interest rates from the U.S. central bank until 2011, although derivatives traders are betting a rate hike to come in the first half of 2010.

Overall, the Fed’s Eleventh District president gave a downbeat assessment, worrying about the sustainability of growth in the medium term.

"The gears are very slow in their rotation, but you might say they’re beginning to mesh," said Fisher, who is not a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee in 2009.

In general, the United States economy is shaping up to be less of a consumption-driven and more of a savings-driven society than has been common in recent decades, he said quick cash.

At the tail end of a painful recession, businesses lack pricing power, a condition that caused prices for almost half the items in a commonly used U.S. inflation "basket" to fall in July, Fisher noted.

Revenue growth at companies has "evaporated," and to preserve profits firms "will continue to focus on cost control, most painfully by shedding workers and driving those who remain on the payroll to higher levels of productivity."

Responding to a question from an audience member at the UCSB campus, which is perched on the Pacific shore, Fisher said he was "praying" that the U.S. jobless rate did not hit 10 percent, but saw no guarantee his prayers would be answered.

August U.S. unemployment, due for release on Friday, is forecast at 9.5% against 9.4% in July.

Long-term price tag

Fisher largely echoed the tone of minutes from the August FOMC meeting released on Wednesday, which stressed that a "gradual" recovery was likely at hand.

"Households and businesses will focus on shoring up their savings and balance sheets rather than spending money. For consumption, that translates into a slow crawl out of purgatory."

Fisher said huge government spending was helping to propel the economy upward, but carries a "long-term price tag" including the prospect of higher interest rates as investors respond to the massive issuance of debt.

"The major challenge facing U.S. fiscal authorities is meeting the need for near-term economic stimulus while pursuing a practicable plan to stabilize the government’s debt-finance obligations."

Fisher said that it is critical that the Fed retain its independence to guide monetary policy.

Interfering with that role would be the "biggest mistake" Congress could make, he said. "It’s important that the central bank be left to do what it does without political meddling, and not have the Congress run monetary policy." 

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Google, the Internet search group, defended its scanning and publishing of millions of books online on Monday by saying the project was making finding information on the Web more democratic.

The Californian company struck a deal with author and publisher groups in the United States earlier this year, allowing it to copy books for the Internet.

But the agreement has been criticized and come under the gaze of the U.S. Justice Department because it does not say what Google might charge libraries, for example. Some of them fear the service will become an expensive must-have.

Dan Clancy, architect of the Google program, told a hearing at the European Commission, which is the European Union’s executive body, that the group hoped to allow Web surfers to find out-of-print books.

“We have seen a democratization of access to online information,” said Clancy, engineering director of Google Book Search.

“You can discover information which you did not know was there,” he said. “It is important that these (out-of-print) books are not left behind. Google’s interest was in helping people to find the books.”

The EU said this year it would examine the Google deal in the United States after Germany said the company had scanned books from U.S. libraries to create a database without asking the authors.

COPYRIGHT SHOWDOWN

The Commission is considering what Europe should do about scanning and printing books on the Web.

Viviane Reding and Charlie McCreevy, the EU commissioners responsible for media and the European marketplace, said they would look at shaking up copyright laws.

That could make it easier for Europe to follow the United States in scanning and printing more books online.

The EU has launched its own online register, Europeana, which includes books and images ranging from William Shakespeare to pictures of French actress Brigitte Bardot.

But most European countries have been slow in scanning and publishing literature for Europeana and Reding hopes companies such as Google can pick up the slack.

The decision to allow Google to build its library of more than 10 million scanned books has divided opinion worldwide.

“The settlement mostly only affects out-of-print books,” said James Gleick, one of the writers who sued Google but later agreed to let the group scan old books and print them online. 

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