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Cross, John; Grosheide, Fredrik Willem --- "Two Perspectives on the Proposed Google Book Settlement" [2012] ELECD 200; in Rosén, Jan (ed), "Individualism and Collectiveness in Intellectual Property Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: Individualism and Collectiveness in Intellectual Property Law

Editor(s): Rosén, Jan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857938978

Section: Chapter 9

Section Title: Two Perspectives on the Proposed Google Book Settlement

Author(s): Cross, John; Grosheide, Fredrik Willem

Number of pages: 25

Extract:

9. Two perspectives on the proposed
Google book settlement
John Cross and Fredrik Willem Grosheide

On September 20, 2005, the Author's Guild and three individual authors
sued Google, Inc., in a federal district court in New York.1 The com-
plaint alleges that Google's deal with several major US research libraries,
under which Google scans millions of books in those libraries and makes
"snippets" of the books available online, constitutes "massive copyright
infringement." Plaintiffs sought to have the case certified as a class action.
One month later, the Association of American Publishers and individual
publishing companies filed a similar case against Google in the same
court.2
Google's primary defense in both cases is the "fair use" defense pro-
vided by US copyright law.3 Before the court could reach the merits of the
claims and defenses, however, the parties in both cases reached a tentative
settlement. Numerous perceived flaws in the original proposed settlement
led to further negotiations, resulting in the filing of a revised proposed set-
tlement (hereinafter called the "RPS") in November, 2009.4 The RPS still
awaits court approval as of the time this chapter was written.
The RPS has been the subject of widespread discussion and debate
among academics, authors, publishers, and the general public. While some
of the comments have been generally favorable, most have been critical of
one or more aspects of the RPS. Much of the criticism argues the RPS is
highly favorable to Google, while unfair to certain ...