Be there or beware, that’s the insider’s word on the seemingly endless saga of the Google Book Settlement. Be in Courtroom 11-A, at 4:30 p.m., on Monday, April 25 for a status conference ordered by Federal Judge Denny Chin, who has flatly rejected the settlement agreement of a class action suit against Google over Google’s digitizing of copyrighted books (See the full 48-page ruling at Judgment). It's the Daniel Patrick Moynihan courthouse in New York.
After the March 22 opinion, Google lawyers said they’d be considering their options, some of which may be voiced at the status conference ordered held just 35 days after the ruling. Judge Chin studied the case for more than a year. He concluded that the agreement was not fair, not reasonable and not adequate.
Judge Chin denied the 2008 settlement between Google, authors and publishers “without prejudice.” That means they could come up with a revised pact that would better protect copyright owners and the judge would consider it. The status conference may give an indication of such future actions, according to one publisher’s attorney.
According to the online I Programmer, Gary Reback, a lawyer and co-founder of the Open Book Alliance, a group that opposed the settlement and includes Google competitors such as Microsoft Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and Yahoo Inc., said the rejection didn't resolve his concerns that Google uses scanned books to enhance its search engine by displaying snippets of the book's text, among other things.
On the other hand, "Publishers are prepared to modify the settlement agreement to gain approval," said John Sargent, chief executive of Macmillan, in a statement issued by the Association of American Publishers on behalf of the publisher plaintiffs. The statement read: "We plan to work together with Google, the Authors Guild and others to overcome the objections raised by the Court and promote the fundamental principle behind our lawsuit, that copyrighted content cannot be used without the permission of the owner, or outside the law."
The April 25 status conference could possibly indicate the future direction of the publishing industry, according to insiders.
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