Court Rejects Google Books Settlement

A proposed class action settlement in a lawsuit challenging Google Inc.'s plan to digitize millions of books and make them searchable online was rejected by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York March 22 as “not fair, adequate, and reasonable.” In 2005 the Authors Guild, individual authors, and publishers brought a class action challenging the project, arguing it would infringe copyrights held by class members. The court said that the nine factors laid out in Detroit v. Grinnell Corp., 495 F.3d 448 (2d Cir. 1974), governed its ruling, with two of the nine factors weighing ...