Just a quick note to say that the Google Book Search lawsuit has entered a new "pause" and will thus be delayed further. Among the salvos that Google and the Author's Guild have fired back and forth are those around the question of whether the Author's Guild can legally represent all authors against Google. As I recall, the Author's Guild has something on the order of 5,000 members, all alive (as far as I know), while Google's digitization now covers somewhere upwards to 10 million books and probably nearly as many authors, from the days of early printed works to the present.
Google challenged the Author's Guild as class representative of all authors, but Judge Denny Chin, the judge who has seen this case through most of its life, allowed the suit to go forward with the Guild as class representative. This has been reversed by an appeals court judge, which means that the question of class representation must be decided before the suit can continue.
Did you see the announcement today (4 October 2012) that Google and Association of American Publishers settled? See http://dthin.gs/VzVyWr
ReplyDeleteFirst reported by WSJ and distributed widely
Bryan, yes, I saw a news article but really need to hear from some lawyers to understand the meaning. What confuses me a bit about the AAP's role is that publishers often are not the copyright holders, so does this apply only to those in which they are? or do their contracts allow them to negotiate for the copyright holders?
ReplyDeleteNote that James Grimmelman has posted a short piece on his blog:
http://tinyurl.com/9selncq
and I may ask some questions there.