In his coverage of the hearing, Gary Price notes that 21 of the 26 speakers during the hearing were against the settlement. In that ResourceShelf post, Gary also provides a rundown (with links) of many news stories about the hearing.

It seems that one of the key issues that Judge Chin questioned both sides about is the settlement’s plan to make authors opt-out of having their works scanned. Some attendees are speculating that Chin seemed in favor of the settlement, while others felt otherwise. Perhaps the most detailed recap of the arguments presented last week comes from The Laboratorium, which summarizes the comments of every speaker who argued in front of Judge Chin.

Here’s the patent summary:

A system comprising: one or more devices to implement: means for receiving a search query from a user; means for selecting a document that includes terms from the search query; means for determining access privileges to the document for the user based on geographical location information of the user, access rights associated with the document, and applicable copyright laws, the document access privileges being determined in a spectrum of access privileges that extends from viewable access to the entire document to viewable access to a portion of the document that is less than the entire document; means for processing selected portions of one or more sections of the document determined to be relevant to the user to make the selected portions unreadable to the user, the selected portions of the one or more sections of the document being chosen based on the determined access privileges and where the one or more sections of the document include the terms from the search query; means for retrieving additional information relating to the access rights, where the additional information comprises at least one of: whether to block images and graphics in the document from being displayed, a list of domains from which not to display advertisements with the document, a logo or a link to be displayed with the document, or whether to display advertisements with the document; means for formatting the document based on the additional information; and means for transmitting the processed and formatted document to the user.

Eyes rolling back in your head? Here’s an important bit: “means for determining access privileges to the document for the user based on geographical location information of the user, access rights associated with the document, and applicable copyright laws . . .”

There are varying laws about copyright in different jurisdictions around the globe. Google’s book scanning (and other copyrighted material indexed by Google) could be more or less available or accessible in some countries than others. Assuming the Google Book Search settlement is approved, many English-speaking countries outside the US won’t be participating.

Here’s more discussion from the patent application:

One category of content that is not widely available on the Internet, however, are the more traditional printed works of authorship, such as books and magazines. Before presenting this type of digital content to users, the content may first be scanned using an optical scanner. Once scanned, optical character recognition (OCR) may be used to convert text in the scanned digital images of the pages of the content to a searchable digital form.

When transmitting the scanned/OCR’ed version of the content (e.g., books or magazines) to users, the content provider may only be able to lawfully provide certain portions of the content to the users. For example, the content provider may provide certain books that are in the public domain and other documents for which the content provider does not have full legal rights. Accordingly, the portions of the book that the content provider chooses to provide to the users may vary.

This would appear to be a scalable automated way for Google to comply with differing copyright laws by country.

The improvements include:

• You can now scroll through categories of books and magazines
• The My Library feature is now on the home page
• My Library selections can be kept private now
• You can now add one or more books to more bookshelves.

Exempting the US would essentially render the settlement meaningless. The scope of the revised settlement has been narrowed to include only the US, UK, Australia and Canada and exclude other countries.

There is a January 28 deadline (Thursday) for affected authors to opt-out of the settlement (or opt-in for those who previously opted out). The revised settlement must still be approved.

Le Guin, and the roughly 300 authors supporting the petition, want use of their works to be individually negotiated by Google (and any similarly situated entities). The petition frames the issue as one of control, the individual author vs. the corporation (here Google):

The free and open dissemination of information and of literature, as it exists in our Public Libraries, can and should exist in the electronic media. All authors hope for that. But we cannot have free and open dissemination of information and literature unless the use of written material continues to be controlled by those who write it or own legitimate right in it. We urge our government and our courts to allow no corporation to circumvent copyright law or dictate the terms of that control.

Again the revised Book Search Settlement must still be approved. For lots more coverage and background, see ResourceShelf’s expansive round up.

The “final fairness hearing” on the revised settlement is for February 18, 2010 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. More details are found here.

There are several private Chinese groups that seek apologies and compensation from Google for scanned Chinese books. Google is meeting with these groups, representing Chinese authors, to try and clear the way for more scanning of Chinese works.

The China Daily article quotes spokespeople for several groups, who express varying degrees of caution or cynicism:

Google’s apology is made mainly because the company values the Chinese market a lot, as well as due to the domestic media’s close attention to the issue,” Zhang Hongbo, deputy director of the [China Written Works Copyright Society], told China Daily . . .

Yang Chengzhi, secretary of the Chinese Writers Association (CWA), told CCTV: “We will have a serious study of the apology and hear the authors’ opinions before we decide whether or not to accept Google’s apology.”

Apparently most of the 20,000 Chinese books scanned were from US libraries.

It’s not clear what Google may do differently in China in the future but it clearly wants a solution to the issue that avoids future lawsuits and public embarrassment.

An amended settlement was announced by Google and the other parties and given preliminary approval on November 19, 2009. Danny blogged the press conference associated with the announcement of the amended settlement agreement, which sought to address formal US Department of Justice objections and many of the opponents’ concerns.

It thus appears that opponents will be unable, through legal process, to stop the project from going forward — at least in the US. However in France itself a case is pending that would potentially fine Google and prevent the further digitizing of French books. The French court is reportedly set to rule on the matter on December 18.

But instead, as the New York Times reports, they’ve asked federal judge Denny Chin for an extension until this Friday, Nov. 13.

In their extension request, Google and the settlement parties say they met with the DOJ as recently as this past Friday, Nov. 6. Assuming the request is granted, and the revised settlement is filed by Friday, it’s possible a final hearing could still happen in late December or early January, as originally expected.

For background on the legal issues involving the lawsuit and settlement, see our Google Book Search archives.

That may seem like an ambitious timeframe given the amount of objections the settlement has received. It also suggests that Google and the parties involved involved don’t think dramatic changes are needed to make everyone happy. In a New York Times article this week, Paul Aiken of the Authors Guild — one of the parties that originally sued Google — says that “the core agreement is going to stay the same.”

In the same article, others who’ve objected to the settlement say the new timeline is too short. “It’s hard to believe that so much could change that it would respond to all serious objections,” says Pamela Samuelson.

Meanwhile, the war of words continues.

After Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt spoke to the media this week about a number of topics — including the Book Search legal battle — Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive responded by calling some Google’s statements “twisted at best.”

On Thursday, the New York Times published an op-ed piece in which Brin addresses what he calls “myths” about the settlement with some sharp words of his own:

“…nothing in this agreement precludes any other company or organization from pursuing their own similar effort. The agreement limits consumer choice in out-of-print books about as much as it limits consumer choice in unicorns.”

Touché!

The war of words may not go on much longer; with just a month to submit a new settlement, the Times says a final hearing could happen as soon as late December or early January.

For background on these legal issues, see our Google Book Search archives.

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, nonprofit organizations, and prominent authors and law professors. Clearly, fair concerns have been raised . . .

[Yet] the settlement would offer many benefits to society, as recognized by supporters of the settlement as well as D.O.J.

Even as it was arguing that the settlement — as negotiated — should be disapproved by the court, the US government argued in favor of the concept:

The United States strongly supports a vibrant marketplace for the electronic distribution of copyrighted works, including in-print, out-of-print, and so-called “orphan” works. The Proposed Settlement has the potential to breathe life into millions of works that are now effectively off limits to the public. By allowing users to search the text of millions of books at no cost, the Proposed Settlement would open the door to new research opportunities. Users with print disabilities would also benefit from the accessibility elements of the Proposed Settlement, and, if the Proposed Settlement were approved, full text access to tens of millions of books would be provided through institutional subscriptions. Finally, the creation of an independent, transparently-operated Book Rights Registry (the “Registry”) that would serve to clarify the copyright status and copyright ownership of out-of-print works would be a welcome development.

So what now?

One optimistic scenario sees all the parties quickly modifying the existing agreement and satisfying the various objections raised by the opponents and US DOJ. But that may be too simple and optimistic. As a practical matter, with many more parties watching and wanting input, it will probably more challenging to reach an agreement. Yet some sort of agreement must be reached.

The settlement ended a class action lawsuit that would presumably be revived if there were no settlement reached. The case has been going on for several years and everyone, including the judge, wants to see it over and done with. Something must happen, the parties are compelled to settle or continue to litigate. But it’s not certain how everyone will get to an agreement that literally satisfies the world.

It’s not clear what will happen. What we’ve got here is what you might call a real cliffhanger.

A copy of the request is here. For more background on the case, see our post from Friday: Department Of Justice Files Objections To Google Book Search Settlement.