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April 29, 2009, 01:02 PM ET
Snags Hit Google Settlement With Authors and Publishers, and Antitrust Worries Rise
It’s beginning to feel like Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, the case in Charles Dickens’s Bleak House that drags on, and on, and on. As speculation grows about the impact that the Google Book Search settlement will have on readers and publishers — will it result in a universal library or a worrisome monopoly? — an actual resolution of the case continues to recede in the distance.
In the latest delay, reported by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, the federal judge in charge of the proceedings responded to authors’ pleas by giving them an extra four months to opt out of the settlement. They now have until September to take that step. The judge, Denny Chin, also bumped the date for a final hearing on the settlement from June to October.
Another piece of news threw the future of the settlement into greater doubt. The Justice Department has taken an interest in the agreement too. It wants to know whether the deal violates antitrust regulations, the Times reported yesterday.
“Lawyers for the Justice Department have been in conversations in recent weeks with various groups opposed to the settlement, including the Internet Archive and Consumer Watchdog,” the Times reported. “More recently, Justice Department lawyers notified the parties to the settlement, including Google, and representatives for the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild, that they were looking into various antitrust issues related to the far-reaching agreement.”
The federal interest in the case doesn’t necessarily doom the deal, the Times noted. But it “suggests that some of the concerns raised by critics, who say the settlement would unfairly give Google an exclusive license to profit from millions of books, have resonated with the Justice Department.” —Jennifer Howard
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