Philip K. Dick Trust joins call for more time to gubble through 334-page, $125 million Google Books Search settlement

Google Agrees to Settlement Delay
The Bookseller, April 28, 2009
By Philip Jones

Google, the US Author's Guild and the Association of American Publishers have acceded to a two-month delay to the resolution of the Google Settlement to allow those affected "more time to consider [their] rights and options". It follows a request made last week by a number of authors, including representatives of the estate of John Steinbeck, to the New York judge presiding over the Settlement to delay the agreement by four months. Google and the plaintiffs have asked the judge to deny the request for a four-month delay.

If the judge agrees to the delay the opt-out date could be be moved from 5th May 2009 to the 6th July, or even later, with the Fairness Hearing (at which the Settlement will be rejected or passed) postponed until the end of August, or even later. Any delay will be relief to many who are just coming to terms with the 300-page Settlement, which was agreed between Google and the US Author's Guild and the American Association of Publishers in October last year. [...]

Lawyers acting for seven authors and their heirs, including heirs to both the John Steinbeck and Philip K Dick estates, sent their letter to the New York judge Denny Chin on 24th April, saying that "more time [was] required simply to understand the complex terms of the agreement" and that "substantial defects in notice of the Settlement undermine authors' ability to assess their rights". [...]

Read the entire article in The Bookseller.

SF author Philip K. Dick wrote the novels Martian Time-Slip (1964) and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965), as well as the short story Martians Come in Clouds (1953). He died in 1982.