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A judge has limited Google's plan to make a massive digital book store and public library.
Publishers, authors and Google are trying to thrash out a deal to keep Google's literary dream alive but little progress is being made after a judge decided not to give its current plan the go-ahead, The New York Times reported.
The judge reportedly rejected Google's aim to scan every book that has ever been published and make them available to the public, meaning that the project continues to drag on its 7 year legal wranglings.
The newspaper said that Google now has the option of taking its battle for books to Congress to promote a law that would make Orphan books ( books under copyright but whose author or copyright owner can't be found) available from its store or library.
Pamela Samuelson, a digital copyright law expert at the Berkeley who is against the settlement, reportedly said that while the publishers are keen to make a deal, Google is less motivated to do so but having scanned 15 million books already, is unlikely to shelve its library project.
"The next thing to do is think about going to Congress and getting legislation that would make particularly orphan works available to the public," she reportedly said.
However the publishers and authors of literary works have options too. Apparently they could either drop or revive their first copyright lawsuit against Google, that claimed the search giant's plan of scanning books and showing tasters of the work was illegal as this has never been debated in court.
Again, commentators have said that the chance of the publishers dropping their suit is also unlikely as so much time and money has already been spent fighting their corner. However, a bunch of analysts have told the newspaper that the publishers want to avoid going to court.
It is thought they now want to settle with Google in a deal that needs each author to ‘opt in' to Google's scheme, giving the company permission to make their work digital.
Scott Turow, president of the Authors Guild which is involved in the settlement reportedly said: "We'd love to sit down with our negotiating partners and arrive at a very quick solution, but given the complexity of this, the Cubs might win the World Series before this is resolved."
However, apparently Google has said an opt-in system would be ‘unworkable' and the point of the settlement was to automatically include huge numbers of books.
If Google could get an agreement, it would get access to millions of orphan works but would lose them under an opt-in agreement and scholars apparently reckon around half of all books are orphans.
