Category Archives: News

1PlusV Complaint Adds Google Books


By [Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011] at 10:29 pm

Aoife White, Google Blocks Smaller Ad Rivals, Competitor Says in EU Antitrust Complaint, Bloomberg, Feb. 22, 2011:

1PlusV sent a complaint to the European Commission today claiming Google refused to allow so-called vertical search sites to use its advertising service, the French web publisher said.

Google also appears to give preferential treatment to its Google Books pages in searches and includes some websites in its search results without their consent, 1PlusV said in a statement. …

By showing Google Books pages in its search results, the company may be violating the search engine’s own anti-spam rules, 1PlusV said.

I have not seen the complaint itself. I am curious about the connection between Google Books results and Google’s anti-spam rules.

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Class Certification Appeal Proceeds


By [Tuesday, August 14th, 2012] at 7:42 pm

In a brief order filed today, the Second Circuit agreed to hear Google’s appeal of class certification immediately. The order means that Google’s appeal of class certification will proceed in parallel with Judge Chin’s consideration of fair use.

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Class Certification Granted


By [Thursday, May 31st, 2012] at 4:07 pm

Today, Judge Chin issued an opinion granting class certification. The Authors Guild lawsuit will proceed as a class action on behalf of:

All persons residing in the United States who hold a United States copyright interest in one or more Books reproduced by Google as part of its Library Project, who are either (a) natural persons who are authors of such Books or (b) natural persons, family trusts or sole proprietorships who are heirs, successors in interest or assigns of such authors.

The opinion also dismissed challenges to the Authors Guild, ASMP, and other organizations’ ability to represent their members in the lawsuit.

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Decision in Freelancers Lawsuit Spells Trouble for Google Books Settlement?


By [Thursday, August 18th, 2011] at 12:01 am

The Second Circuit issued a decision today in another copyright class-action settlement case with the ungainly caption of In re: Literary Works in Electronic Databases Copyright Litigation. The opinion rejected the settlement there because the class contained members with strongly diverging interests, depending on the strength of their copyright claims against the defendants. The court held that different groups of plaintiffs who had registered their works at different times needed separate lawyers. C.E. Petit of Scrivener’s Error believes that this bodes ill for the Google Books settlement, and I concur.

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First Analyses of the Opinion


By [Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011] at 11:59 pm

We have posted a collection of articles reporting on Judge Chin’s opinion to the News page and will be adding more as they appear.

I have posted my individual analysis of the opinion to my personal blog. Kenneth Crews has posted his own shorter summary of the opinion. We will, of course, be adding links to more analysis as it comes in.

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Google Books Affiliate Program Launches


By [Monday, June 20th, 2011] at 7:51 pm

Google has integrated Google Books into its other affiliate advertising programs. Here is the official blog post announcement.

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Google Scans Millionth CIC Book


By [Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011] at 10:26 pm

Paul Wood, Millionth book scanned to digital in project, News-Gazette (Champaign), Feb. 22, 2011:

Google Books is working with the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, the Big Ten schools plus University of Chicago, with a goal (for now) of 10 million volumes from member libraries, and passed the million mark just this month.

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GW Roundtable on June 15


By [Sunday, June 5th, 2011] at 11:56 pm

George Washington University Law School will hold a roundtable on June 15 with the provocative title. “Can the Google Book Settlement Be Fixed?: A Roundtable Discussion Among Experts”:

This conference will explore what options are available to the parties that would retain the principal benefits of the rejected deal, but might satisfy the judge and some of the objectors. After an initial presentation of options, a moderator will pose questions to the discussants, who are experts in the three main areas where the judge identified problems: copyright, class actions, and antitrust.

The event is free, but reservations are required.

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HathiTrust Wins


By [Thursday, October 11th, 2012] at 10:27 am

Judge Baer has granted HathiTrust’s motion for summary judgment. In a 23-page opinion, he ruled in favor of HathiTrust and the print-disabled defendants on every substantive legal issue. The opinion concludes that search indexing and providing access to the print-disabled are both fair uses. An appeal is possible, but for now, the ruling marks a definitive judicial statement in favor of mass digitization.

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National Federation of the Blind Files Complaint Over Google Apps Accessibility


By [Saturday, March 19th, 2011] at 11:57 pm

The National Federation of the Blind may be a strong Google supporter when it comes to the settlement and its accessibility provisions, but when it comes to Google Apps, not so much. The NFB filed a complaint with the Department of Justice, objecting to the lack of accessibility in Google Apps. The complaint targets NYU and Northwestern, both of which have adopted Google Apps for their students. The NFB’s demonstration videos give a good indication of the sorts of issues to which the NFB objects.

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