November deadline for new Google Books deal

The Google Books case will drag on for at least a few more months, as a judge in New York has set a November deadline for the submission of a new settlement.

Google's original settlement with groups representing publishers and authors over the right to digitize certain kinds of books was met with howls of objection from authors, privacy advocates, and perhaps most importantly, the U.S. Department of Justice. A hearing on whether to approve that settlement was originally scheduled for Wednesday, but last month the publisher and author groups asked for more time to work out a new deal that satisfies the Justice Department's concerns.

The parties were directed by Judge Denny Chin to submit a reworked settlement by November 9, according to the Associated Press. An approval hearing would be held at some point after that, and the judge will only hear objections to any of the new provisions at that hearing.

The original settlement was signed last October, but final approval of that settlement has now been delayed twice as the publishing and technology communities grapple with the complicated and far-reaching effects of the deal. Under the settlement as previously written, Google would have been the only organization in the world with explicit permission to digitize out-of-print but copyright-protected books. In addition, an independent Books Rights Registry set up as part of the deal would have been the sole clearinghouse for revenue shared with book rights holders and would have had the power to set prices for institutional subscriptions to the library of scanned books.