Judge delays Google books scan hearing

Judge Chin has delayed the hearing on the proposed settlenment

The US federal judge in the Google book scanning case has decided to postpone a decisive hearing after the Department of Justice (DOJ) voiced serious concerns over the fairness of Google's settlement offer.

The fairness hearing was originally set for 7 October. However, earlier this week the plaintiffs – the US Authors' Guild and the Association of American Publishers – asked Judge Denny Chin to postpone the hearing as they were convinced that the DOJ's concerns would mean the settlement pact they made with Google wouldn't go through.

A week ago, the DOJ submitted a filing to the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, which read: “This court should reject the proposed settlement in its current form and encourage the parties to continue negotiations."

According to the court order, Google does not oppose the motion to delay the fairness hearing.

"The current settlement agreement raises significant issues as demonstrated not only by the number of objections, but also by the fact that the objectors include countries, states, non-profit organisations, and prominent authors and law professors," read the order. "Clearly, fair concerns have been raised."

"Under all the circumstances, it makes no sense to conduct a hearing on the fairness and reasonablness of the current settlement agreement, as it does not appear the current settlement will be the operative one."

Google has been locked in a legal dispute over its Book Search program, which is designed to scan, digitise and make available online works from various research libraries, for around four years now.