In seemingly separate developments, the proposed Google Book Search settlement had two setbacks yesterday.
- Judge Denny Chin of Federal District Court in New York delayed the opt-out and opposition-brief filing deadline four months from May 5 until September 5, 2009 on the logic that authors and opposition groups needed more time to understand the proposed (~350 page, complex) settlement. This, in turn, delays the Final Fairness Hearing from June 11 to October 7, 2009. Simply put: now the proposed settlement cannot be approved before October.
- The Department of Justice has launched an anti-trust investigation into the proposed settlement, reported here in the New York Times, seemingly centered on the rights to orphan works issue, challenged in a recent University of Chicago Law School working paper, The Google Book Search Settlement: A New Orphan-Works Monopoly.
Two more great topics to chat about with Dan Clancy, engineering director for Google Book Search, when he appears at the Mark Logic User Conference coming up on May 12-14, 2009.
