Google Seeks Dismissal of Authors’ Book-Scan Class Action Lawsuit

By Sarah Mirando | May 9, 2012

Category: Legal News

By Kimberly Mirando

The saga continues in the Google book-scan class action lawsuit, which is seeking damages for authors who say the search-engine giant digitally scanned millions of books without their copyright permission.

Google, Inc. asked a judge last week to dismiss the class action lawsuit, saying the organization that brought the lawsuit, the Authors Guild, cannot represent the owners of the books’ copyrights.

U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin heard arguments last week by Google to deny the authors the right to proceed as a class and to dismiss the organization’s case. Last year, Chin rejected a $125 million class action settlement between the two sides and the parties have been unable to reach a new agreement.

The Authors Guild, individual authors and publishing companies sued Google in 2005 after it announced plans in 2004 to digitally scan books in order to provide short snippets of text to people who use the Google search engine. The groups argue that Google did not seek authorization from the owners of the works and violated copyright law.

Google has argued that displaying snippets of text is fair use under copyright law. It expanded this argument last week by trying to convince Judge Chin that “the ultimate question is who owns the rights to display a small excerpt of the work,” saying “many authors contracted that right away to publishers.”

As a result, Google argues, the Authors Guild can’t sue on behalf of authors because it doesn’t claim to own the copyrights at issue.

Google said after the hearing that it is still in talks with book publishers about a possible settlement in their case against the search-engine company.

Judge Chin told both sides in the authors’ case that he will hear oral arguments in Septemeber on their proposals for judgment without a trial.

The authors’ case is Authors Guild v. Google, Case No. 05-08136, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, Manhattan.

UPDATE 1: Judge Chin denied Google’s motion to dismiss the Authors Guild Google Book Scan Class Action Lawsuit last week, and granted class certification to the authors. You can read more about his decision here.

UPDATE 2: A federal judge ruled Nov. 14, 2013, that Google did not violate copyright law with the Google Books project. The class action lawsuit was dismissed but an appeal is expected to be filed.