Last Updated on April 1, 2011, 4:21 pm ET
Today the LCA is proud to release A Guide For the Perplexed Part IV: The Rejection of the Google Books Settlement, the latest in the ongoing series of Guides for the Perplexed, prepared by Jonathan Band to help the library community understand the ongoing legal dispute over Google’s book scanning activities. (For more than you probably ever need to know about the saga of Google Books, see Parts I, II, and III).
In this installment, Band explains why the Judge rejected the proposed settlement:
The court concluded that the settlement was unfair because a substantial number of class members voiced significant concerns with the settlement.… However, the validity of the objections seemed less important to the court than the fact that many class members raised them.
He also explains what the decision ultimately means for libraries, saying that although it’s too early to tell what the parties will do next:
[I]t appears that both the challenges and the opportunities presented to libraries by the settlement when it was announced in the fall of 2008 are growing narrower and more distant.
Read the full guide here.
