U.S. Judge Denny Chin released his decision today on whether to approve the class action settlement with Google involving the Google book scanning project. Judge Chin rejected the settlement as not being fair, adequate, and reasonable.
His 48 page reasons were summarized as follows:
While the digitization of books and the creation of a universal digital library would benefit many, the ASA would simply go too far. It would permit this class action – which was brought against defendant Google Inc. (“Google” )to challenge its scanning of books and display of “snippets” for on-line searching to implement a forward-looking business arrangement that would grant Google significant rights to exploit entire books, without permission of the copyright owners. Indeed, the ASA would give Google a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission, while releasing claims well beyond those presented in the case.
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