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Federal judge hears arguments on Google books settlement, delays ruling

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York announced at a hearing Thursday he is not ready to rule on a proposed class action settlement in a copyright suit over Google's book-scanning initiative. Judge Denny Chin heard arguments from both sides on whether the settlement adequately protects the rights of publishers and authors and whether it violates antitrust law. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argued that the proposed settlement fails to adequately protect the privacy interests of readers, stating: Because the settlement does not contain any privacy protections for users, Google's system will be able to monitor which books users search for, which pages of the books they read and how long they spend on each page. Google could then combine information about readers' habits and interests with additional information it collects from other Google services, creating a massive "digital dossier" that would be highly tempting and possibly vulnerable to fishing expeditions by law enforcement or civil litigants.Chin did not indicate when a ruling can be expected.Earlier this month, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a statement of interest urging to court to reject the settlement due to copyright and antitrust concerns. The case originated when two lawsuits were brought against Google by the Authors Guild, a group seeking to preserve copyright protection for authors, and by other plaintiffs including the Association of American Publishers (AAP), McGraw-Hill, Penguin Group, and Simon & Schuster. Under the terms of the original settlement agreement, which was reached in October 2008, Google would pay $125 million to authors and publishers of copyrighted works. In return, Google would be allowed to display online up to 20 percent of the total pages of a copyrighted book, and would offer users an opportunity to purchase the remainder of any viewed book. In a separate case, a French court ruled in December that Google violated French copyright law through its book-scanning initiative.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on February 19, 2010 (boomark / email).