US Justice Department voices concerns on Google’s revised Books settlement

[megri]

With a fairness hearing on the revised Books settlement deal between Google and authors and publishers’ groups scheduled to be taken up by US District Court Judge Denny Chin in New York on February 18, the US Department of Justice recently expressed concerns that the revised class-action settlement still had some notable legal issues.

Noting that the revised deal, like the original one, apparently runs afoul of the copyrights of authors, and is excessively wide-ranging, theJustice Department said in its 31-page filing that the changed settlement terms still hint that Google will get domination over the countless ‘orphan’ works - whose right holders are either not known or cannot be found.

According to the Justice Department, the revised settlement “suffers from the same core problem as the original agreement: it is an attempt to use the class action mechanism to implement forward-looking business arrangements that go far beyond the dispute ... in this litigation.”

The Justice Department further said that a “properly structured” deal might potentially offer momentous benefits to society; and has, thus, urged the court to encourage the parties to persist negotiations on additional changes to the deal.