Google Blows Book Search Deal Deadline
by John Paczkowski
Posted on November 9, 2009 at 2:36 PM PT
Google’s five-year-old copyright feud with the publishing industry will drag on a few days more now that the deadline for submitting a revised settlement proposal has been pushed back once again. Google (GOOG) and attorneys representing the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers were supposed to file the document today, but instead asked the judge overseeing the matter to give them until the end of the week.
“The parties have been in discussions with the Department of Justice both prior to and since the October 7 status conference,” attorney Michael Boni explained in a letter requesting the extension. “We met with the Department as recently as this past Friday, November 6. In light of the above, the parties respectfully request this additional time to file the motion.”
It would seem, then, that the latest version of the settlement did not adequately address the DOJ’s concerns that the agreement could violate antitrust law by giving Google “de facto exclusive rights for the digital distribution of orphan works.” Presumably if it had, it would have been filed on time.
