Google, which is scanning millions of books to create a digital library, and a group representing authors and publishers have until November 9th to present an amended settlement of a lawsuit, a judge said.
US District Judge Denny Chin in New York was initially planning on deciding today whether he should give final approval to the $125 million settlement reached between Google and the groups.
After receiving more than 400 filings, including one from the US Justice Department objecting to the terms, the two sides agreed to make changes. Lawyers today gave the judge an update on their talks.
Michael Boni, representing the authors, and Google lawyer Daralyn Durie told the judge today that they aim to present a new settlement by early November.
Judge Chin set a November 9th deadline. The lawyers also said they hoped to win final approval of the accord by late December or early January, a schedule the judge endorsed.
The two sides said they had resolved many issues. "The parties' expectation is we will present a settlement agreement," Durie told the judge.
Google was sued in 2005 by authors and publishers who said the company was infringing their copyrights on a massive scale by digitizing books without their permission. The California-based company said a settlement struck last year will "bring back to life" millions of books sitting unread on library shelves or out of print.
Under a key aspect of the agreement, Google would make digital copies of books that are no longer commercially available yet are still covered by copyright.
The out-of-print books would be available for preview and purchase, unless the author told Google not to offer them. One possible change is the elimination of a provision that gives Google 'most-favored nation status', which means publishers pledge not to strike more favorable deals with Google rivals.
The justice department said that provision discourages potential competitors.
Under the agreement, Google, the publishers and authors groups would set up a book rights registry to compensate copyright holders whose works were scanned. It also would seek to identify the rights holders of so-called 'orphan works' whose owners aren't currently known.
Bloomberg