Lawyers representing the US Authors Guild and the American Association of Publishers in the Google Book Settlement have formally requested the US Federal Court to postpone the date for the Fairness Hearing scheduled for October 7th. This follows last week statement by the US Justice Department that the Google Book Settlement should be rejected.
Instead, lawyers for the US Authors Guild and the American Association of Publishers, backed by Google, have proposed that there be a ‘status conference’ on November 6th. Lawyers argue that the plaintiffs now need time to address the concerns expressed by the US justice Department.
As of yet, Justice Denny Chin has made no response to these latest developments in the case or how all parties should proceed. The Open Book Alliance, an opposition group to the Google Book Settlement, which includes both Amazon and Microsoft, has stated that the ‘settlement, as we know it, is dead’.
I’m impressed. Perhaps this judge realizes two things:
First that there’s no way this settlement can past legal muster even if radically altered. The filings by the Germany and French governments made that clear.
Second, from a legal perspective, there’s no reason to continue it. The strong opposition from publishers and authors show that the two plaintiffs not looked out for the interests of their respective groups, publishers and authors. Disqualify them, and the lawsuit become a sham.
All that can be done now is negotiate some sort of “Google will display online” offer that copyright holders are free to accept, reject or simply ignore. And for that they don’t need a court.
This was never the sort of problem that could be solved by a lawsuit. The issues are too closely intermeshed with international copyright treaties. It is those treaties that must be brought up to date.