All’s Quiet Now, But Don’t Be Fooled — This Battle is Just Beginning

By Peter Brantley

It’s now been a week since Judge Denny Chin put the brakes on the Google Book Settlement by granting the parties a requested delay in the fairness court hearing. Google and its partners have tried hard to position this defeat as a minor setback that can be overcome with small tweaks to the settlement. The reality is much more significant for the cartel, and much more heartening for those who believe that the digitization of books should promote competition, innovation, and the public interest, versus the creation of a monopoly over the access, distribution, and pricing of our cultural knowledge base.

The settlement, as it was originally conceived, is dead. Hundreds upon hundreds of parties, including the Department of Justice, pointed out serious and fundamental flaws, all of which require fundamental changes to address. Three major library association groups, including the American Library Association, published an informative study of the breadth and depth of the opposition to the settlement.

Even Google and its partners recognized that they would have to start all over again, and they are likely back in their secret negotiating room, trying to cobble together a response.

At the status conference that the Court has scheduled for October 7th,
we will presumably get an update on how far they have progressed. It
will be interesting to see exactly how much openness and transparency that Google and its partners have built into the new process for coming to a resolution. Given the huge volume of serious and legitimate concerns raised by a wide swath of organizations, it should be required for the parties to find ways to get input and involvement from these stakeholders.

Don’t let the quiet of the last week fool you. The struggle for a free and open market for books is far from over, and the settlement is nowhere near being approved. The hundreds of affected parties who haven’t yet had input into the process will have their day. The Open Book Alliance will continue to educate and inform policymakers and stakeholders about the steps that can be taken to ensure that the mass digitization of books happens — the right way.