Hearing on Google Books Deal Postponed

A judge has delayed a scheduled October 7 "fairness hearing" on Google Books, Google's project to create a digital database of freely available books. Negotiations to revise a proposed Google Books settlement are continuing between Google and the Author's Guild and the American Association of Publishers. Therefore, on September 24, Federal district court judge Denny Chin (S.D.N.Y.) ruled that "it makes no sense to conduct a hearing on the fairness and reasonableness of the current settlement agreement, as it does not appear that the current settlement will be the operative one." Google did not object to the postponement.

Several issues in the proposed $125 million deal remain unresolved. Among the concerns are how Google would pay royalties to copyright holders, how "orphan works" (copyrighted works for which the copyright holder cannot be located) would be treated, whether Google competitors like Amazon would be disadvantaged by the settlement, and whether the settlement would violate antitrust regulations. Judge Chin wrote in his September 24 ruling, "The current settlement agreement raises significant issues, as demonstrated not only by the number of objections, but also by the fact that the objectors include countries, states, nonprofit organizations and prominent authors and law professors. Clearly, fair concerns have been raised."

The parties will appear before the Court on October 7 for a status conference to determine the most expeditious course of action in the four-year-old cases. The cases are The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. et al v. Google Inc., No. 1:2005cv0881 (S.D.N.Y. filed October 19, 2005) and The Author's Guild et al v. Google Inc. No. 1:2005cv08136 (S.D.N.Y. filed September 20, 2005).