Ars Technica has a look at the current filings and legal strategies in the Google Books case. There are three current cases against Google—two 2005 cases involving publishers and authors, which are the ones involved in the settlement that failed after four years of work, and one in 2010 from photographers and illustrators. Google appears close to a separate settlement in the publishers’ case. But Google is likely to carry on its battle with the authors, photographers, and other individual copyright holders. Some authors consider the fight a matter of principle. And even if Google convinced...

Google is not the only party in the Google Books lawsuits who is attempting to move forward with litigation. Publishers Weekly reports that the Authors Guild is filing to request class certification in its lawsuit against Google Books. The guild argues the class should be approved because individual claimants “could not as a practical matter effectively assert alone against Google” such claims of infringement, and that “those claims are presented far more fairly and efficiently than they would be in individual actions, which would require the same issues to be litigated multiple times.” ...

Apparently Google has gotten fed up over the failure of the settlement talks in the copyright lawsuits over Google Books, because it has begun to move toward actually litigating the case. An article in TechWorld notes Google has notified Judge Denny Chin that it plans to file a motion to ask that parts of the 2005 copyright infringement lawsuit and a related 2010 lawsuit be dismissed. [Judge Chin] set a deadline of Dec. 23 for Google to file the dismissal motions. The plaintiffs will have until Jan. 23 to respond to the motions, and Google...

Lest we think that the lawsuit against Google that has been spinning its wheels for six years and gone precisely nowhere was the extent of the Authors Guilds efforts to fight the Google Books scanning projects, the Guild has struck again with a lawsuit against the universities that partnered with Google in the project, and the cooperative organization, HathiTrust, set up to manage those works. The Authors Guild, its counterparts from various Commonwealth countries, and a group of authors have filed suit to block the use of unauthorized scans of copyrighted works from the universities libraries as part...

Here are three questions and answers from the complete interview that appears in the July 24, 2011 edition of the Boston Globe: IDEAS: So why not leave it to Google? DARNTON: It became clear, as Google's project evolved, that it would be a commercial enterprise, and in fact an enterprise attached to a gigantic monopoly. A monopoly, perhaps, with the best intentions, but that would not necessarily serve the public good, because of course Google's primary responsibility would be to its shareholders .[Clip] IDEAS: So what would a digital public library be like? What would it do? DARNTON: It doesn't look like everybody's image of...

Denny Chin, the judge in the Authors Guild versus Google Books case, seems to be getting more and more frustrated the longer this six-year-old case drags on. In the latest hearing on the matter today, he set a firm deadline of September 15th for all parties involved to come up with a new settlement. Judge Chin had rejected the much-vaunted $125 million previous settlement back in March, feeling that it gave too much power to Google. He expressed the opinion that an opt-in system, in which authors and publishers explicitly had to allow their books to be made available,...

The latest settlement conference for the Google Books affair was held a few days ago, Reuters reports. Apparently, not much actually happened there apart from all sides asking the judge to give them still more time to prepare. "The parties are still considering what options are available," and everything "is on the table," Bruce Keller, a partner at Debevoise & Plimpton, who represents publishers in the settlement, said at a hearing before Circuit Judge Denny Chin in Manhattan federal court. As we reported back in March, Judge Chin rejected the most recent settlement proposal,...

A couple of days ago, Simon Barron at the Guardian posted a piece that claimed “Google can’t be trusted with our books,” because the company decided out of the blue to shut down Google Videos and pitch all user-uploaded content on the site in order to focus more on its search. A public outcry convinced Google to backpedal to the extent that it would see about preserving the content and making it available elsewhere, but Barron sees the original decision as a sign that Google might choose to dump any content at any time if it wants to. ...

Forbes has a very interesting three-page interview with Tim O’Reilly in which he discusses a number of things about piracy, the e-book market, and the future of publishing. Back in 2002, O’Reilly described piracy as “progressive taxation” on fame, and has been quoted in defenses of piracy ever since (including mine). He’s got some more fascinating insights to give here. The first question has to do with the “death of print”. O’Reilly points out that print probably won’t die, but electronic media will transform what a “book” is. He uses an example of electronic maps, such as Google Maps—no...

Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans, and happy Thursday to everyone else. It’s that time of year again when we count our blessings and contemplate the things we are thankful for. (It’s also the time when we stuff ourselves into a comatose state on oversized poultry, but those who call it “Turkey Day” run a risk of trivializing the real reason for this holiday.) Reviewing my list for last year, I can’t really find a whole lot that I would change on it. Despite the onset of agency pricing, we’ve still got about a zillion DRM-free free and cheap...

After announcing its cooperative arrangement with Hachette Livre for Google Books operations in France, Google has now said that it is in “notional” talks with UK publishers to come to a similar arrangement, The Bookseller reports. The company also announced Hachette had signed up with its forthcoming e-book program, Google Editions, and hoped to launch it “shortly.” Industry observers are pleased with the deal, which seems to have produced a similar result to the Google Books settlement without expensive, time-consuming litigation. However, the French Publishers Association is still skeptical, warning that Google "has never respected its commitments as regards...

Google has come to a settlement with French publisher Hachette Livre in regard to the scanning and use of scanned French books for its Google Books project. The deal apparently gives Hachette considerable control over what titles are scanned and used. Hachette will also get to use Google’s scans of its books for print-on-demand and e-book sales. The Bookseller’s FutureBooks reports on the settlement and posts the press release. The Bookseller itself has more backstory, noting that Hachette had filed an objection to the Google Books settlement with the US court in September. Google says that it does not...