Google Books Revised Settlement Deadline Pushed Back To Nov. 13

Google and the Author's Guild have delayed submission of their revised settlement until Friday, further prolonging the settlement -- and a potential ending -- to the controversial Google Books case.

According to court filings, attorney Michael Boni, who represents the Author's Guild, asked Judge Denny Chin of the U.S. Federal Court for the Southern District of New York for more time beyond the original Nov. 9 deadline set by Chin for receiving the settlement. In his request, Boni writes that the revised settlement will be filed "no later than Friday, November 13, 2009."

"The parties have been working diligently on completing and filing the amended settlement agreement," Boni wrote in his request. "The parties have been in discussions with the Department of Justice both prior to and since the October 7 status conference."

Judge Chin approved Boni's request.

The delayed submission of the revised Google Books settlement continues a protracted a legal battle that both Google and the Author's Guild thought was settled as far back as a year ago.

Google was sued by the Author's Guild and other publishing rights holders in 2005. The groups accused Google of copyright violation in Google's plan to digitize out-of-print books and make them available on the Internet through its Google Books library.

Google and the authors' rights groups settled in October 2008, with Google agreeing that it would pay $125 million to the rights holders and restrict digitization of certain books that were out of print but are still protected by copyright.

The U.S. Department of Justice soon got involved, however, and in September 2009 urged the New York District Court to reject the settlement as presently structured.

A number of high profile companies, including Microsoft and Amazon, have made public their opposition to the settlement since the settlement was first delayed.

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