[Nfbsatx] Fwd: [Chapter-presidents] AP: Judge says no quick ruling on Google book plans

Sat Feb 20 04:38:06 UTC 2010

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Freeh, Jessica" <JFreeh at nfb.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 21:27:31 -0600
Subject: [Chapter-presidents] AP: Judge says no quick ruling on Google
book plans
To: david.andrews at nfbnet.org

[]

Judge says no quick ruling on Google book plans

By LARRY NEUMEISTER (AP) – 21 hours ago

NEW YORK  Supporters of Google's effort to
create the world's largest digital library
Internet told a federal judge Thursday that it would benefit society.

Marc Maurer, president of the National Federation
of the Blind, said the audio capabilities of
Google's system "will give us access to 10 million books."

One of the opponents  which include authors,
foreign governments, corporate rivals and even
the U.S. Department of Justice  countered at a
packed court hearing in Manhattan that Google's
plans were more about commerce, not access to books.

"It's not going to be a great library, it's going
to be a good store," said Sarah Canzoneri, a
member of the Children's Book Guild and plaintiff
in a lawsuit by authors and publishers.

U.S. District Judge Denny Chin already has read
more than 500 submissions about a $125 million
settlement aimed at ending a pair of 2005
lawsuits that tried to stop Google from scanning
books into a gigantic online database.

On Thursday, he was hearing statements from
interested parties before deciding whether
changes made to a deal first announced in October
2008 are sufficient to withstand constitutional scrutiny.

"To end the suspense, I'm not going to rule
today," he said at the start. "There is just too much to digest."

He added, "Voluminous materials have been
submitted. There is a lot of repetition. Some of
the submissions even quote other submissions."

In court papers submitted last week, Google Inc.,
which is based in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns
= "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
/>Mountain View, Calif., defended its deal with
authors by saying its digital library lives up to
the purpose of copyright law, which is to create
and distribute expressive works.

"No one seriously disputes that approval of the
settlement will open the virtual doors to the
greatest library in history, without costing
authors a dime they now receive or are likely to
receive if the settlement is not approved," Google said.

The Department of Justice said Google and the
plaintiffs have made substantial improvements to
the original settlement, but it said "substantial issues remain."

It said the new deal raised antitrust concerns
and suffered from the same core issue as the
original agreement because it establishes
forward-looking business arrangements that
"confer significant and possibly anticompetitive
advantages on a single entity  Google."

Still, the Department of Justice said it believes
an approvable settlement may be achievable,
perhaps by requiring rights holders to opt in to the settlement.

France and Germany, which oppose the settlement,
noted they support a European book-scanning
project, Europeana, because it is in compliance
with their laws and requires permission from
copyright holders before books are scanned.

Obtaining permission beforehand is what
<http://amazon.com/>Amazon.com Inc. said it did
when it engaged in a similar book-scanning
project. Amazon's lawyers oppose the Google
settlement and have asked to address the court.
Other Google rivals including Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. also oppose it.

Among authors opposing the deal are folk singer
Arlo Guthrie and writer Catherine Ryan Hyde,
whose novel "Pay it Forward" was adapted and released as a movie.

"While I believe that the proposed Google Books
Settlement has the potential to provide authors
with additional exposure and perhaps additional
sources of revenue for their works," Hyde wrote,
"I continue to believe that the proposed
settlement as amended remains critically flawed
and is unfair to authors in a number of crucial respects."

Lawyers for the plaintiffs who brought the 2005
lawsuits defended the settlement. Their
submission to the judge said there were
relatively few complaints, considering the
ambitious plan to digitize all the world's books,
and that many opponents "advance competitive and
other parochial self-interests" that conflict
with the broader interests of the publishing industry.

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