Statement on October 7 Court Hearing in Google Book Settlement Case

The Open Book Alliance today issued the following statement from co-founder Peter Brantley in response to today’s U.S. District Court hearing on the Google Book Settlement case:

“Based on the court hearing today, one thing is clear — whatever revised settlement Google and its partners unveil on November 9th must be subject to full review and scrutiny by the vast array of stakeholders – authors, academics, consumer advocates, privacy groups, libraries, and others – who have spoken out.  By their own admission, they have taken the deeply flawed original settlement off the table. So, any revisions to the settlement that would resolve the flaws identified by the Department of Justice and other objectors must be fundamental in scope. This is inconsistent with the timeline they proposed. This is not the time for shortcuts.

“It’s also clear that the settlement partners have zero interest in creating an open process that takes input from critical stakeholders. Instead, Google and its partners are serving their private business interests and ignoring the public interest. They came to the courtroom without a single concrete recommendation of how they would address any of the problems with the original settlement. Instead, they proposed more of the same — secret, back room negotiations – rather than an open, transparent and collaborative process.”