"U.S. court throws out Google digital books class status"

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

The settlement isn't dead, and I don't believe Google have ever renounced it.
The case now goes back to Judge Chin to continue.

That settlement agreement assumed that the Authors' Guild could represent authors as a class. In this latest loss for the Guild, the subject of this thread, the appeals court disallowed class status for authors (at least pending determination of Google's Fair Use argument). If the Guild can't represent all authors as a class then they cannot settle litigation on their behalf.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

That settlement agreement assumed that the Authors' Guild could represent authors as a class. In this latest loss for the Guild, the subject of this thread, the appeals court disallowed class status for authors (at least pending determination of Google's Fair Use argument). If the Guild can't represent all authors as a class then they cannot settle litigation on their behalf.

I certainly agree that that is the only sane way of looking at it, and hopefully it will kill off that portion of the settlement for good.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

I certainly agree that that is the only sane way of looking at it, and hopefully it will kill off that portion of the settlement for good.

The Authors' Guild claimed to represent *the* class action group; without them, there is no case and no settlement.

The Authors' Guild overreached; they wanted a quick, simple ruling of "scanning books without permission is wrong," and they didn't get it. And Hathi has now thrown that argument out entirely. All their maneuvering was based on that central concept, which they expected to override the fact that their class action group was badly designed.

Plenty of groups and individuals filed amicus complaints against the approved class group. It's not that they didn't want to sue Google (some did; some didn't) but that they believed the Authors' Guild wouldn't represent their interests--academic authors wanted a lot more ability to arrange shared information than the proposed system set up; photographers whose works were included in the scanned books wanted different considerations; libraries were concerned that Google would own the *only* database of all those books; international groups were concerned about the American focus of interests being sought, and so on.

It's likely this decision effectively kills the lawsuit. The class action group was far to broad; there's no way to reallocate it to adjust for everyone's interests. Instead, individuals and orgs can sue on their own, and Google may wind up dealing with restitutions and penalties that become precedential for future suits.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

It's likely this decision effectively kills the lawsuit. The class action group was far to broad; there's no way to reallocate it to adjust for everyone's interests. Instead, individuals and orgs can sue on their own, and Google may wind up dealing with restitutions and penalties that become precedential for future suits.

<cynical>Or they just buy off anyone big enough, and drag the litigation out long enough that noone can afford to fight it.</cynical>

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

<cynical>Or they just buy off anyone big enough, and drag the litigation out long enough that noone can afford to fight it.</cynical>

Google can afford more than the Author's Guild.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Google can afford more than the Author's Guild.

Yes, it was Google I meant.